


The Princey Bride

by patentpending



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Princess Bride Fusion, Anachronism, Crack Treated Seriously, Fantasy, Multi, No knowledge of The Princess Bride needed, Nonbinary Roman Sanders, Trans Logic | Logan Sanders, not historically accurate
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-08
Updated: 2019-07-14
Packaged: 2019-10-06 05:51:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 26,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17339747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patentpending/pseuds/patentpending
Summary: After the love of his life is kidnapped and murdered by pirates, Roman Santiago, the most beautiful being in five hundred years, finds himself unhappily engaged to Prince Remy. The engagement is quickly thrown off-course, however, when he gets kidnapped by a trope of criminals, all the while being pursued by a strangely familiar man in black.





	1. In Which Roman Gets Hot

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger Warnings:  
> \- temporary character death

By the end of this story, several people will have died, one of them, notably, twice.  Fighting, fencing, torture, poison, hate, revenge, pain, death, chases, escapes, lies, miracles - all this for the guise of love.

 

The year Roman Santiago was born, the most beautiful person in the world was an African woman named Zainabu who worked as a maid in the household of the village chief.  It did not escape the chief’s attention that someone rather incredible was tending to his household; neither did it escape the attention of his wife, who was somewhat lacking in the beauty department but certainly not in intelligence.  She set about studying her adversary and soon discovered her greatest weakness: chocolate.

Bits of chocolate began to find themselves stuffed everywhere one could look, and Zainabu never stood a chance.  A season’s time found her pleasantly plump, happier than she’d ever been, and ecstatically married to the local pastry chef.  The chief never looked at her again with anything but vague disappointment, and the chieftess was quite content until, for reasons unknown to this day, the chief ran off with his goat herder.

The stress of this was quite enough to give the chieftess migraines, except this was before migraines.  Well, more specifically, migraines existed and people had them, but they were called ‘head pains’, and the medical community believed they were best treated with a specific mixture of lavender root, chicken broth, and boiled eels.  To no avail, The chieftess took this potion faithfully, which was the exact opposite of her unfaithful husband - who she still occasionally saw blowing kisses at the goat herder. Unsurprisingly, her grumpiness became legendary, as was noted by Voltaire (except this was before Voltaire).

The year Roman Santiago turned ten, the most beautiful person in the world was the son of a rich Indian spice merchant named Vihaan.  Vihaan had a perfect dusky skin tone that had only been recorded (as this was after proper recording had been established) six times before.  The plague hit India when Vihaan was twenty-five, and, although he survived, his complexion was not quite as fortunate.

The year Roman Santiago turned fifteen, the most beautiful person in the world was a Native American named Ahusaka.  They were the child of a very rich ruler and sought after by countless suitors. So much more beautiful than the rest of the world were they that it appeared they would be number one for many, many years to come.  That was, until one of their suitors (number two-hundred and six) exclaimed that they were the most perfect being ever to walk the Earth. This stuck with Ahusaka, who spend the rest of the night examining themself in the mirror (this was after mirrors), pore by pore.  The rosy-fingered dawn was creeping across the sky by the time their assessment was done. Ahusaka sat back, tired but content. It was true. They were, doubtlessly, perfect.

Humming contentedly, they slipped on their shoes and went for a stroll by the lake, musing to themself.  How lucky they were to be rich and beautiful and sought after and kind and young -

Young?

Ahusaka stopped dead in their tracks and blinked rapidly, existential dread creeping up their throat as it does in all of us from time to time.  Sure, they were rich and kind and would be forever, but one could not exactly stop aging. So distressed were they that, for the first time in their life, they stepped into the library (this was after libraries).  They poured over manuscripts and philosophy, so caught up in their pursuit of youth that they failed to notice the shadows stamped under their eyes becoming permanent or the tiny stress lines wrinkling their forehead.  Suitor four-hundred and seven was a scholarly type who was eager to assist them, and, next thing you knew, they fell in love. The two of them did, eventually, manage to create the sorcerer’s stone (beating out Nicholas Flamel by a good two decades) but that was long after Ahusaka had decided somethings were far more important than sublimity.

Roman Santiago, at eighteen, of course knew none of this.  Although, if he had, he would’ve sourly demanded to know who, exactly, was keeping track of these things and what made them such an expert.  As it was, Roman barely ranked in the top twenty-five, and this was largely on potential alone. He was a mess of bruises and dirt from his adventures and fights in the forest, he saw baths as loathsome obstacles, and he always smelled faintly of dragon blood.

His main concerns were finding new ways to smuggle Shakespearean anthologies out of the library (this was after Shakespeare); his horse, The Lady Sterling Charlotte No-Tail the Fourth (Roman had always been a bit on the over-dramatic side, and his one-time stint as a barber had not gone well for either man or horse); and torture the farm boy, Virgil.

“Farm Boy,” was once Roman’s preferred nickname for Virgil, as it was what he had been when he had been orphaned and came to work for Roman’s father.  This lasted until Roman realized he wasn’t a farm _boy,_ anymore.  (Reports differ on when this epiphany occured, but it is this author’s sincerest belief that it was when Roman saw Virgil chopping firewood shirtless.)  Since he couldn’t exactly just start calling Virgil his name all of the sudden, a barrage of nicknames ensued.

“My Chemically imbalanced Romance, fetch me that pitcher.”

“As you wish.”

“Panic! At the Everywhere, polish my saddle.  I want to see my face shining in it by morning.”

“As you wish.”

“Not-so Good Charlotte, listen to this story and tell me what you think.  Specifics, okay? Nothing vague.”

“As you wish.”

_As you wish,_ was the token phrase of Virgil's communication with Roman.  Sometimes with a smirk, sometimes with a sigh, sometimes with a ‘princey’ tacked on, but still, those same three words over and over again.   _As you wish._

Virgil lived out in a shack near the animals and kept it neat, according to Roman’s mother.  Sometimes, late at night, Roman could look out his window and see it faintly glowing with candle light, Virgil sitting at his small desk, reading.  This strange urge came to Roman, sometimes, to climb through his open window (this was after window panes) and cross the dew-speckled lawn to sit with Virgil and ask him what he was reading.  This feeling was always met with an appropriate level of disgust as Roman slammed the window shut and curled up in his bed, huffing.

Roman did, however, sometimes leave his personal books unattended in places where the farm boy just might happen to see them.  If anyone ever borrowed them, well, it was quite alright, especially since that person always was careful to keep them clean and never lost the bookmarks.  He sometimes wondered if certain unknown someones laughed at the snide comments he made in the margins or marveled over the drawings he made on the blank pages, long, calloused fingers tracing wondrously over the fruits of Roman’s labor.  Roman never asked. It would be unseemly.

“I’ll leave the boy an acre in my will,” Roman’s father was fond of saying whenever the subject of Virgil was brought up.

“You’ll spoil him,” Roman’s mother would scold, and the age-old argument would start up again (this was after arguments).  Roman always sighed when this began, because he knew that, eventually, they would turn on him.

“Have you bathed?”  Roman’s father demanded.

“Of course I did!”  Roman cried.

“You smell like the forest.”  Roman’s mother scowled.

“I was hunting for dragons,” Roman explained.

“You’ve got to take a bath, Roman,” one of them sighed.  “We’ll never find you a proper spouse if you smell like dead things.”

“A _proper_ spouse,” Roman scoffed. “The prince of my dreams won’t care if I go off on adventures.  He’ll be right there with me!”

“Well,” Roman’s father sighed, pinching his nose, “if a prince ever comes by asking, you’re all his.”

Although, what with the way things were looking, Roman’s prince was somewhere very, very far away, and didn’t feel like finding him.  Shortly before his twenty-first birthday, Roman realized that it had been ages since he had held a normal conversation with anyone from the village.  Half of them simply avoided him. He had never really had… anyone he was close to, so it took a moment for the realization to dawn, but once he did, it was impossible to miss.  The village was completely polarized. They glared sharply at him or stared with wide eyes. They turned haughtily away or couldn’t bring themselves to move.

Eventually, he managed to corner Apollo, the blacksmith’s son, to demand answers.

He glared balefully back.  “I would think, after what you’ve done, you wouldn’t have the audacity to ask.”

“What?”  Roman demanded, crossing his arms.  “What have I done?”

“You’ve stolen them!”  Apollo cried. “You’ve stolen everyone away!”

He stormed off in a huff, but it was enough for Roman to understand.  Everyone who was even the slightest bit interested in males, half the peasants in the village, were infatuated.  The idea was almost enough to make him laugh. Who wanted them? There wasn’t a person in this town who could hold a candle to the swashbuckler of Roman’s dreams.  Of course, it was rather nice to be beloved, but after a while, a guy could only handle so much blind adoration. They stammered through conversations, cheeks red and words ineloquent, and Roman got more uncomfortable the longer he stood with an admirer.

Sometimes they gathered in the darkness beyond his window and called to him, jeers and demands and crude remarks he had to stuff his head under his pillow to avoid.  He tried to block them out, but luckily he never had to endure it long. Every time, Virgil stormed out like a hurricane, dark eyes flashing in the night and lips curled back into a snarl.  

“Leave,” he growled, “before I make you.”

A brave one would step forward with a snide comment, and Virgil, without another word, would let his fist fly.

They quickly learned to leave when Virgil came.

Roman never failed to thank him when this happened, but Virgil only shrugged and ducked his head, as if to hide that half-smile dancing on his lips.

“As you wish,” he said, then, so softly that Roman wasn’t sure he was meant to hear it: “I’ll always fight for you.”

 

When Roman turned twenty, a man in a fine carriage was stationed at the crossroads, watching as he rode into town on The Lady Sterling Charlotte No-Tail the Fourth (who was, ironically, his first and only horse).  Gawkers were by no means an anomaly in Roman’s life, so he paid him no mind. In a way, he was right. The man, one of many before who had ridden miles to catch a glimpse of Roman, was in no way personally significant.  He was, however, the first noble to undergo this pilgrimage and the one to mention Roman to The Count.

 

The kingdom of Parietal was settled somewhere in Florida (although this was before Florida) and across the channel from the kingdom of Occipital.  (The name of the channel was a source of much debate and several wars, but eventually the two kingdoms uneasily settled into Parietalians calling it the Channel of Parietal and Occipitalians calling it the Channel of Occipital.)  In theory, Parietal was ruled by King Terrence and Queen Valerie; in actuality, King Terrence had a tendency to mumble and much prefered bird-watching, resulting in some rather vague and alarming responses at board meetings when he was far too occupied with admiring the osprey that had just landed outside the castle window.  Thus, the majority of ruling fell to their heir, Prince Remy.

He was assisted in all things by his confidant, The Count.  The Count had a name, presumably, but as he was the only count in Parietal, everyone had quite forgotten it.  Deceit was a nickname he had earned somewhere, but one didn’t exactly call a man like The Count a thing like that to his snakey, half-peeling face.

 

“Well,” Roman’s father said, standing before the window, “you don’t see that every day.  Darling, come look.”

“Look yourself,” Roman’s mother sniped back, not looking up from her sewing, “you know how.”

It was the twentieth argument she had instigated that day, and, with a pang, Roman’s father suddenly remembered that he was behind by five.  “Ah, such magnificence!” He crowed, blocking the entire window with his body. “Never have I seen such splendor!”

He continued marveling until her curiosity got the better of her, and she crept to his side, only to be thwarted by his careful positioning.  “What is it?” she demanded, trying to peer around him.

“Look yourself,” he said smugly, “you know how.”

The score was twenty to sixteen, and he edged aside to let her see the massive parade of extravagant carriages trundeling down the road by their farm.  They both marveled silently at the brilliance of it all - gold trimmings and white Persian (this was after Persia) horses and thick velvet curtains to keep the reality of wage gaps and lower-class living from reaching the noble’s gilded eyes.

“They must be going to meet Prince Remy somewhere,” Roman, who had come into the kitchen only to find the soup boiling over and his parents with their noses pressed against the window, said.  “He’s off hunting, most likely.”

“The why,” his mother asked, voice creeping steadily into alarm, “are they turning towards us?”

Indeed, the tokens of obscene wealth in a capitalistic society (this was during rich people being awful, but, really, that perimeter doesn’t have a time limit) were bouncing down the rough-hewn road towards the Santiago farm.

“Did you forget to pay the taxes?”  Roman’s father demanded, a tad frantically.  (This was after taxes, but taxes really came before everything, including soup, which was the very first meal the very first fish-man had when he threw himself onto the shore from the ocean.)

Roman’s mother didn’t have a chance to respond because the carriages rolled to a stop, and it was time to see what these very important and serious people wanted…

“Chickens,” Deceit, ever a master of deception, said, not at all convincingly, from within the depths of his gilded carriage.

“Chickens?” Roman’s father repeated slowly, one eyebrow raised, standing beside his wife on the lawn.

“Chickens,” Deceit confirmed, fully aware of the ridiculousness of his excuse but committing to it at this point.  “Word is that this _charming_ farm of yours has the best chickens and chicken eggs in all of Parietal. We simply had to know your secret.”

“Oh yes,” Roman’s father, a frankly terrible farmer with only a few mangy chickens, said, nodding.  “The secret.”

“That secret,” Roman’s mother, who once had a horse shoe thrown at her head because she tried to sell those chickens at the market and got laughed out of the entire village, agreed.  “It’s a very secret secret.”

“Surely you wouldn’t mind sharing?”  The Count smiled, revealing oddly sharpened teeth.

“Not at all,” Roman’s father floundered.  “You see, we, uh-”

“You have a child, don’t you?”  The Count interrupted, boredly examining the stitching on his specialty golden gloves.  “Why don’t you call him out. Although I’m _sure_ he couldn’t be sharper than either of his _charming_ parents, it couldn’t hurt.”

“Roman!”  Roman’s father called.  “Roman, come here, please.”

Roman’s mother blinked at The Count in confusion.  “How on Earth did you know we have a son?”

“A lucky guess, I’m sure.  I’m prone to-” The Count stopped talking, for, at that moment, Roman stepped out.

Slowly, Deceit emerged from the carriage, eyes wide.  He was a tall, handsome man with one yellow eye and a look of perpetual scorn hiding in the curve of his mouth.  He couldn’t look away as Roman joined them.

“Show some respect,” Roman’s mother hissed in a low tone, and Roman preformed a hesitant bow.

“It’s an honor to have you,” he murmured, voice low and melodic.  With his hair unruly, skin sunburned, and clothes the rough garb of a peasant, Roman barely ranked within the top twenty of beauty (and that was mostly on potential), yet still, he was by far the most beautiful being anyone present had ever gazed upon.

“Chickens,” Deceit said eloquently.

“What?”  Roman blinked.

“The Count is here to find out just what makes our chickens so grand.”  Roman’s mother smiled, far too wide. “Go on, Roman. Tell him.”

“Well,” Roman began, rapidly composing a list of plausible lies, “we feed them with-”

“We feed them!”  Roman’s father cried, nodding emphatically.  “That’s it. We have the farm boy feed them.”

“And is that the farm boy there?”  The Count, marginally recovered from the full force of Roman’s beauty in the same way that one flying directly into the sun eventually gives up trying to resist and slips into a state of great inner peace, gestured towards Virgil, lurking at the side of the house.

“Indeed.”  Roman gestured him over.  “Jason Toddler! Come here.”

Virgil’s lips moved softly as he approached, but Roman didn’t have to hear him to know what he was saying.   _As you wish._

“Have you a name, farm boy?”  The Count asked.

“Virgil, Count.”

“Well, Virgil, perhaps you will be so kind as to educate us.  We are all greatly passionate about chickens. We are practically reaching the point of frenzy, such is our curiosity on their feeding habits,” Deceit drawled dryly (sarcasm was invented and mastered at this point).  “Might you demonstrate the source of this miracle?”

“You want me to… show you how to feed chickens?”  Virgil and Roman shot each other incredulous glances, as if checking that they were not alone in the insanity.

“It’s what I live for,” Deceit deadpanned, taking Virgil by the arm.  As tempted as he was to keep staring at Roman, it was better he not make the reason for his visit so blatant.

Roman trailed after them, unsure why.  They all stood around awkwardly as Virgil fed the chickens, Deceit making appreciative noises and not letting go of Virgil’s arm.  The chickens pecked at the ground. The Count was still holding onto Virgil. The chickens clucked. The Count was gazing at Virgil steadily.

Something strange curdled in the pit of Roman’s stomach.

 

“He didn’t really do anything though, did he?”  Roman’s father pushed his soup around in the bowl, frowning.  “He just fed them.”

“Maybe they just like him personally,” Roman’s mother mused.

Roman’s bowl was still barely touched, but he pushed it away in favor of getting a new one and carrying it to the back door.  “Here.”

“Thanks, Princey.”  Virgil smiled up at him, eyes dark and lovely.

“You’ve never explained why you call me that,” Roman blurted suddenly, gripping the doorframe and fixing his gaze on the shadowed forests.

Virgil blinked, taken aback.  “You’ve never cared to ask.”

“Well, I’m asking now, aren’t I?”  Roman twisted his mouth peevishly then turned away.  “Nevermind, forget it. There’s a reason we don’t talk, farm boy-s/boys/girls. All our conversations would go round in circles-”

“Prince Troilus,” Virgil interrupted.  “You remind me of Prince Troilus from Troilus and Cressida.”

Roman blinked.  “He’s an indecisive idiot!”

Virgil smirked.  “I’m well aware.”

Roman drew himself up, offended, and prepared to tell that farm boy where, precisely, he could stick his judgemental opinions when Virgil amended himself.

“More importantly, though, he’s a romantic.”  Over time, Roman couldn’t help but notice the different smiles Virgil had - patient, irritated, smug, wicked.  There was one, however, that struck him as strange. Roman only ever saw it when it was only the two of them.

“He believes in love and a happy ending, all the way though,” Virgil continued, sticking his hands in the pockets of his hoodie (hoodies have been around for much longer than you might think).  “It’s that optimism, I think. You always… just _go_ for things, go off on adventures and damn the rest of the world if they don’t agree.  We’re peasants, yet you believe in a better life, in princes and adventures and true love.”

“Why shouldn’t I, Bore-owulf?”  Roman, unsure if he should be offended, went with the safe route and stuck his nose up in the air.  “There’s no reason there shouldn’t be a happy ending.”

“I’m not sure that’s the way things work.”  Virgil smiled up at him, only a bit bitterly.  “But if anyone deserves to ride off into the sunset, it’s you, Roman.”

A lump rose in Roman’s throat, and he tried to swallow it down, floundering for something to say.  By that time, however, Virgil had shaken himself out of his odd mood and was once again the quiet, wry farm boy Roman thought he knew.

“Thank you for the soup.  Good night, Princey.”

“I didn’t dismiss you!”  Roman exclaimed as Virgil started to return to his hut.  The farm boy stopped, turned, and arched an expectant eyebrow.

“Yes?”

Roman wasn’t quite sure how to explain he didn’t want to say goodnight just yet.  “I don’t like what you’ve been doing with The Lady Sterling Charlotte No-Tail the Fourth,” he eventually decided upon.  “Polish her saddle, massage her ears, and comb her mane. I don’t care if it takes you all night, Edgar Allen Poe-dantic.  Just get it done.”

Virgil inclined his head slightly, the curl to his mouth suggesting a mock bow.  “As you wish.”

Roman nodded, not satisfied, but slowly coming to his senses.  “Goodnight then, farm boy.”

“Goodnight, Princey.”

“Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

 

The night was hot as Roman readied for bed, a strange cauldron of emotion bubbling in his chest.  It had been a strange day, he reasoned with himself as he collapsed onto his bed, so it only made sense that he was somewhat disquieted.  

The Count had been staring at Virgil.

Roman rose abruptly and cracked the window, sighing as a breeze drifted inside.  He had been too warm. That explained it. The returned to bed, snuggled under the covers, and closed his eyes.

Why had The Count been staring at Virgil?

Roman rose again and began to pace around his room, brow furrowed (which, although it endangered his position within the top twenty, miraculously did not dock him from the roster).  It didn’t make any sense. Why would anyone want to stare at Virgil? Sure, he was strong and muscular, but anyone would be after working on a farm all day. Sure, his skin was tanned past its natural brown to the color of rich honey, but the farm excuse again.  His eyes were nice enough, if you liked that sort of thing - dark and wild, like the sea after a storm. It just didn’t make sense for a man as fashionable and dignified and handsome as The Count to be staring at a lowly farm boy like Virgil.

Perhaps his hair?  Roman triumphantly popped his fist into his palm, stopping in his tracks.  His hair! Virgil treated his hair with a strange mixture of wild berries, tinting it somewhat purple.  Roman nodded, satisfied. It made sense. The Count wasn’t allured by Virgil in any way, he simply was gawking at the novelty of a boy with purple hair.

Good then.  Perfect. Roman settled himself back into bed.  All was settled. Everything was great.

Except that Roman knew it was nothing more than a cheap, fake explanation.

The faintest strands of music drifted through Roman’s open window, and he propped himself up to see the object of his infuriation sitting in his candlelit hovel, humming to himself and softly strumming his guitar.  It was a rough-hewn thing that the farm boy had made himself, working in the dark of the evening once his chores were done. Roman had asked about it once, in passing, but Virgil had simply shrugged uncomfortably and muttered something about his mother being a musician.  His long fingers worked methodically at the strings, pulling sound from thin air.

Everything in Roman’s vision suddenly shifted, not drastically, not irrevocably, but irrefutably, as if everything in the world had been shifted four point three centimeters to the left.  Epiphanies are like that, sometimes. Nothing is truly different, but to your eyes, everything is ever so slightly changed.

The Count was right to look at Virgil.  Roman, as it turned out, couldn’t help but look as well.

 

He didn’t sleep well that night, and, as soon as dawn brushed the sky, he was on his feet and knocking frantically on Virgil’s door.  Virgil opened it, messy-haired and soft with sleep. He blinked out at Roman with those eyes, dark as the sea after a storm. Behind him, Roman could see short, half-melted candles, the guitar, and those still-same books Roman had left out for him.  One was open to a drawing Roman had done. And there, before him, was Virgil.

Roman couldn’t bear to look at him, so he stared down at the ground between his bare feet.

“I love you,” Roman blurted out.  “And I know you might not believe me because I have never been anything but terrible to you, but it’s true.  Perhaps it’s the truest thing I’ve ever said in my entire life. I love you. I think I have for a very long time, even though I’ve only been aware for a few hours now.  In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a bit of a snob, so that probably led to my internalized classism shining through in a stalwart rejection of any romantic involvement with you, but that doesn’t matter now.  

“I’ve had an epiphany, and everything seems to be ever so slightly to the left, and I love you.  I love how witty you are, and I love how you stay up every night to read even though you must be exhausted, and I love falling asleep as I listen to you play the guitar, and I love you.”  

The sun was rising behind Roman, filling him with its warm glow and courage.  “I think I’m growing to love you even more with every single second. I thought I loved you last night, but then, when you opened the door, I realized that my love last night was a puddle compared to the sea after a storm of my love now.  Your eyes are like that, did you know? I’ve never told you, but I’ve always thought that.

“There are so many things I’ve never told you.  I’ve never told you that I think you’re witty and brave and kind and the most incredible person I’ve ever met in my entire life.  I’ve never told you that I love you. I know I can’t compete with someone like The Count - for I saw the way he looked at you - but please bear in mind he’s older and has other interests, but I am young and for me, there is nothing but you.  I love you so much it fills every inch of me. My arms love you, my ears adore you, my knees shake with blind affection. My mind begs you want anything just so I can make you happy, just so I can see you smile. Do you want me to follow you for the rest of your days?  I will do that. Do you want me to crawl? I will crawl. I will be quiet for you or sing for you, or if you are hungry, I’ll bring you food, or if you’re thirsty and nothing will satisfy you but French wine, I will go to France, even though it is across the world, and bring a bottle back for your lunch.  Anything that I can do for you, I will do for you; anything that I can’t do, I will learn to do. I’ll do anything to prove that I love you, Virgil. Oh, Virgil. I’ve never called you that, have I? Virgil, Virgil, Virgil. Now, please, my love, my Virgil. Virgil, please tell me that I have the slightest chance of winning your love.”

With that, Roman did the bravest thing he’d ever done in his entire life: he looked Virgil in the eyes.

Virgil promptly closed the door in his face.

 

Roman didn’t quite remember how he get back inside, past his parents, and into his bedroom, but he found himself curled up on his thin, lumpy mattress, eyes wide and staring at the thatched ceiling.  His tears were hot and flowing without abandon, but he scarcely felt them. Instead, all he could focus on was a vast, empty vat perched just above his stomach. It was a tremulous thing, sloshing thick, nasty acid over his heart and down his stomach with each shake of Roman’s shoulders.

Time enough later, he raised his trembling hands to his eyes to wipe away the last of the thick, hot tears splashing down his cheeks.  He rose, slowly, and used the washing basin. He stood there for a moment, face pressed into the blessed coolness of the damp cloth against his eyes, then presently pulled away and flashed himself a bright smile in the mirror.

“There now!” he chirped, “that’s much better, isn’t it?”  He patted his cheeks, trying to coax the color back into them.  “Look at you, all worked up over nothing at all.”

It was the way these things were, sometimes.  Youthful follies - he was still a young man, after all.  You fell in love for a moment, burned with all the passion and intensity of a falling star, then you burned out.  Get your heart broken, sob it out, get up again, rinse and repeat. Buck up and chock it up to experience, Old Sport.

“It’s better he didn’t say anything,” Roman assured himself.  “He has troubles in the mental capacity, after all.”

He’d have stammered and turned red and hid his face in that patched-up hoodie until things became terribly awkward.  Really, Virgil had done them both a kindness this way.

Besides, it was Virgil.  Who cared what Virgil thought?  Virgil, who still maintained a MySpace.  (This was after MySpace, but much, much before the internet.)  Virgil, who smeared charcoal under his eyes for the aesthetic. Virgil, who was an emo nightmare.  Virgil, who was snarky and sour and sharp-tongued and clever and handsome and - Roman cut his spiraling thoughts off with another sob, throwing himself on the bed and resolving to hide there until the sun went away.

He was, indeed, making remarkable process by the time the knock came on the door.

“I don’t care who you are, but go away before I run you through with my sword,” Roman called, voice thick and rough.

“It’s Virgil.”

Roman had a tiny heart attack.

“Virgil,” Roman forcibly drawled, throwing himself back to lounge across the bed and tapping a shaking finger against his chin pensively.  “Do I know any Virgi- oh Farm Boy, it’s you! How terribly droll.” He frantically fluffed his hair, wiped his eyes, and went to the door, swinging it open.  “Ever so kind of you to stop by, you know. I’ve been feeling absolutely dreadful all day about that nasty little joke I played on you this morning. Of course, you knew I wasn't serious for a single moment, or at least I thought you knew, but then, just when you started closing the door, I thought for one terrible instant that perhaps I'd done my little prank a bit too convincingly - you know what a fabulous actor I am - and, poor thing, you might have thought I meant what I said when, of course, we both know how absurd that would be."  Roman smiled becomingly and took a deep breath, as he had just performed a rather impressive monologue of denial.

"I've come to say goodbye.”  There was a rough burlap sack clutched in Virgil's left hand.

The smile trembled on Roman’s face as he desperately grasped onto it the way one desperately grasps onto a slippery bar of soap in the shower.  “Oh, good _night,_ you mean?  How sweet of you, My Dark and Stormy Knight, to show that you aren’t in the slightest upset at that joke of mine-”

“I’m heading to Europe to make my fortune,” Virgil interrupted.  This was after fortunes, but only just, and Europe had been established for a good long while at this point.

“Europe?”   The frame of the door bit into Roman’s hands as he clung to it.  “Is… it because of what I said this morning?”

“Yes,” Virgil said simply.  

The ground buckled beneath Roman, and the pomp drained from him entirely.  “I'm sorry,” he said quietly. “I didn't…” Tears were stinging at his eyes again, and he tried futilely to blink them away.  “I didn't mean to scare you away. I was too intense, I know. Please, stay, Virgil. We can talk it out. I'll restrain myself, I promise.  Please don't… please don't leave me.”

“I have to.”  Virgil took a small step forward, his hand drifting up towards Roman, then stalling halfway and awkwardly coming to land at the back of Virgil's neck.  “There’s a ship that leaves for London tomorrow morning. I’ll work ceaselessly until I’ve saved up just enough for a small farm and a house… for two.”

“I see.  Well, I hope you and The Count will be quite happy together.”  Jealousy roared in Roman's chest, and his foot ground against the earth, smashing grass into the rough-hewn floor (which is why, to this day, we refer to jealousy as green).  “Although I do hope you know he won't be satisfied with a dingy old farmhouse and some lousy-”

“-Roman,” Virgil interrupted, looking some combination of bewildered and exasperated and fond.  “What is this about The Count? I don't think either of us are quite on the same page here.”

“You're running off with The Count,” Roman burst out, “because I love you and you don't love me and!-”

“I don't love you?!”  Virgil interrupted again (terrible manners on his behalf, really), incredulous.  “Roman, surely you must know that everything I've done these past years has been for you.  How could you ever even dare think that I don't love you?”

Roman went quiet and trembling, yet still he managed to take a small step closer.  “What?”

“When my parents died and yours took me in as a servant, you were the only person who showed me even the smallest bit of kindness.  You left out your books for me, and dropped the strings for a guitar just like my mother had at my door, and I fell so desperately in love with you that I've stayed here, for years and years, clinging onto the dream that one day you would look up and _see_ me.”  Boldly, Virgil reached out and took Roman's hand, intertwining those long, calloused fingers around Roman's soft, brown ones.

“I pushed myself to become strong because I thought that would please you.  I played the guitar when you were near so I could see that smile you get when you hear music.  I tended to your horse because she protects you on your grand adventures, and I could never bear it if you were in danger.  I studied languages and art and literature just so I could keep up with your lightning wit. I stayed here just to be close to you.  Everything I've done, Roman, _everything_ has been for you.”  Virgil dropped the burlap sack and gently wiped away the tears falling from Roman's eyes.  “So don't you _dare_ say that I don't love you.”

“I'll kill you if you're just teasing me,” Roman, desperately trying to regain his composure, laughed.

“Why would you think that?”

“You haven't said it, Virgil.”

Virgil arched an eyebrow.  “Is that all? Okay, Princey, here goes” - he drew himself up - “I love you.  Want it louder? _I love you!_  Need me to spell it out? Eye ell-oh-vee-ee why-oh-yu.  Backwards? You love I. In Morse code? Dot-dot-”

“Now you really are teasing me,” Roman cut in, laughing.

“Sweet revenge,” Virgil defended, squeezing their hands and sending stardust glowing through Roman's veins.  “I love you, even with as big of a moron as you are” - offended Princey noises - “since you could ever possibly think otherwise.”

Roman shook his head, smiling.  “But how could I have known?”

“I said it.”  Virgil tucked a loose curl behind Roman's ear.  “Every single day, I told you ‘I love you’. You just heard ‘as you wish’.”

The bell in town square rang, the deep chimes reaching as far as the small Santiago farm.  Virgil made a small noise and pulled back reluctantly.

“I’m sorry, Roman, but I have to go.  The ship leaves soon, and London is far.”

“I understand,” Roman said, swallowing down the lump in his throat.

“I’ll come back as soon as I can, I swear it.”  Virgil picked up his burlap sack.

“I believe you.”

Virgil took a step backwards, unable to turn his back on Roman.  “And I’ll write, often as I can.”

“I’ll respond to every letter.”

Another step.  “I’ll miss you every day, Princey.”

“So will I.”

Another step.  “I really do have to go.”

He was almost out the gate.

Roman watched him.

“Goodbye, Roman.”

“Goodbye, Virgil.”

He turned around.

The words burst from Roman: “Without one kiss?”

Virgil’s face blossomed into a smile.  “As you wish.”

And they fell into each other’s arms.

 

The day after Virgil left, Roman thought it was only right that he moped around, sighing dramatically and gazing forlornly into the middle distance.  After all, the love of his life had departed, life was meaningless, etcetera, etcetera. It didn’t take more than a few hours of this fantastically melancholy mood, however, before doubts started to creep into his mind.

Europe was a very long way away, and what would happen if Virgil came back to find Roman a withered, sour man with a sallow face and disposition for tears?  He could take one look then immediately go “Nope. Sorry, Roman, but I’m running off with a local British man. The accents are so sexy, you understand.”

“No, I do not understand!”  Roman cried aloud, then rushed to his mirror.  Narrowing his eyes in determination, he examined himself carefully.  “You’re not getting rid of me that easily, Incredible Sulk.” (People often underestimate how long superhero references have been around.)

“Mother! Father!”  He called, storming down the stairs and interrupting his parents’ daily breakfast squabbling.  (Thirteen to fourteen and they hadn’t even finished off the eggs yet.) “How can I improve my appearance?”

His mother immediately burst into tears, sobbing about how she had prayed for this day, and his father fainted.

“Brush your hair,” he said once the smelling salts had been administered.  “For the love of god, please brush your hair.”

“And wash behind your ears,” Roman’s mother instructed.  “Thoroughly.”

“Stop tearing all your clothes.”

“Don’t roll around in the mud.”

“I’ll start there then,” Roman confirmed, nodding with determination, before releasing a tiny sigh.  “Goodness, no one told me being beautiful was going to require so much effort.” Nonetheless, undaunted, he set to work.

Each day, he had to wake up early in the morning to finish all the farm work in record time.  With Virgil gone, there was twice as much work to be done, and, since The Count’s unusual arrival, egg orders had increased exponentially.  Roman had always been resourceful, however. He carried hay bales from one side of the field to the other, sculpting his arms and shoulders.  He ran after chickens who had flew the coup, turning his legs long and lean. He rode The Lady Sterling Charlotte No-Tail the Fourth to increase his core strength.  

That ass needed no improvement.

It was late in the afternoon when the real work began, however.  First, a cold bath, scrubbing at his skin until the layers of dirt washed away, revealing the smooth, hickory-brown skin beneath.  His family was blessed with beautiful dark skin, and he enhanced its natural glow with oils and lotions, until he was practically luminous.

His hair, once he wrestled out the tangles and mud, was a mass of autumn curls.  It had been roughly chopped with a knife whenever he thought of it, but now he went into the village to find a barber, and was pleased with the short, daring haircut he left with.  He combed his fingers lightly through the autumn curls, smiling as he considered how much Virgil would like running his hands through Roman's clean, silky hair.

Fixing his figure faults came next, and he dedicated a fair amount of time to critiquing his inherent traits.  His right wrist was far too pudgy, his left elbow terribly bony.

Within three weeks, Roman had moved from number twenty to fifteen and was moving fast.

He bathed his skin with fresh honey and milk started tailoring his clothes.  He kept up his hard work and, within another week, he had reached top ten.

None of this had escaped the attention of the village, and, although Roman was now more beautiful than ever, there was something in his demeanor, a soft happiness, that prevented any ill will.  Villagers reported that he was more lively and bright than ever before, his love for Virgil shining through his every action. And, really, that's what spurred the entire sure of beauty, not the elaborate self-care routines.

To love and be loved is the most beautiful a person can be.

They saw Roman's glow every day as he went down to the docks at dusk, gently plodding his horse along the cobblestone streets.  He sat the edge of the water and kicked his feet over the edge, waiting and hoping for the mail carrier’s vessel to arrive.

The effect of Virgil's words on him was so strong that, when the first letter arrived, Roman's glow of happiness instantly propelled him to number five.

_Europe is strange and a bit frightening,_ the first letter read, _and I love you._

That was the way Virgil wrote: _It is raining and I love you.  I’ve gotten over my cold and I love you._ Roman was entirely certain that it was just Virgil teasing him again, in that wry, tender way he had, but that didn’t stop Roman from smiling every time he read another _I love you_ in Virgil’s careful, curling handwriting.

Months passed.  Through their correspondence, they grew closer than ever.  Virgil was just as snarky and clever as Roman knew, but he was also more vulnerable, perhaps able to better express himself through writing, where there was no chance of tripping and falling over his words.  Perhaps it was the twentieth time Roman laughed aloud at something Virgil wrote, then curled closer to the letter, smiling, that a pang of melancholy hit him. All this time before he had accepted Virgil, he had missed out on this smile on his face and this fluttering in his stomach, and this soft, warm happiness curling in his chest. _Well,_ he resolved, going back to Virgil’s tales of his exploits, _they had plenty of time in their future together._

They were so close that, when a certain revelation fell upon Roman one day (literally.  He was wandering through the village when Linda got rather fed up with her husband Steve forgetting their anniversary and hurled the magnificent dress he had given her out of a second-story window and directly onto Roman’s head), Virgil was the first one he told.

His strokes were hesitant and his mind churning as he carefully scratched out that there was something inside of him (after some deliberation, he determined that ‘he’ was comfortable) that wasn’t entirely male all of the time.

Roman marched to the harbor, carefully placed his letter in the hands of the postmaster, and waited.

The response, when it came, was a package with a letter strapped on the front with rough burlap twine.

His hands shook as he unfurled the letter, anxiously skimming over pleasantries and idle chatter Roman just knew Virgil had put in to infuriate him until he came to the section he wanted.   _Am I still allowed to call you Princey, then?_

If Roman hadn’t been in love with Virgil before, that one simple sentence would’ve done him in.  (Especially when the package revealed a rich red dress, slightly too short, slightly too wide, and absolutely perfect in every way.)

_Yes,_ he responded, _of course, my love._

_Well, then, Princey,_ the reply came some weeks later, _as you wish._

 

As it turned out, that was the last letter Virgil ever sent him.

 

Roman returned home from the library one day to see his parents standing there, wooden.  He hadn’t had any letters lately, but that was only to be expected. Virgil was sailing back.  The next time he and Virgil spoke, it would be in person.

“Are you two alright?”

“Off the…”  Roman’s mother swallowed hard and tried again.  “It was off the coast of the Indies.”

“Couldn’t be helped, you see,” Roman’s father said helplessly.

“What couldn’t?”  Roman demanded, clutching his books tighter, as if they could shield him.

“Virgil’s ship was captured by pirates.”

Roman thought he’d better sit down.

“So he’s been captured?”  Roman knit his hands together in his lap, stalwartly refusing to let the tears clouding his vision fall.  “Is there… any word on a ransom?”

Roman’s father gently laid a hand over his.  “It was the Dread Pirate Roberts, Roman.”

“Oh,” Roman said faintly, “the one who never leaves captives alive.”  

“Yes.”

Suddenly, Roman’s words fell from him faster than he could contain.  “Did they come upon him in the night? Did he know? Was he scared? Did they cut his throat, or was he thrown overboard?  Perhaps they whi-whipped him…” His breath caught, face flushed, trembling. “Well. I guess it doesn’t matter.”

He rose abruptly.  “If you’ll excuse me.”

By the time either parent was composed to call after him, Roman was gone.

He shut himself into his room for one week, then another, then another.  His parents fretted over him, pressing their ear to the door to see if he was sobbing, sliding small bits of food inside to make sure he was eating.  He wasn’t crying, though. Not so much as one would think. Instead, he read Virgil’s letters over and over again, until he could recite each one by memory, see the curled, looping handwriting every time he closed his eyes.  

He pulled on a red silk dress, slightly too short, slightly too wide, and absolutely perfect in every way.  He knitted his hands in the fabric and wondered if Virgil had run his hands over it before he sent it to Roman.  The ghosts of his hands fluttered against him, phantom touches from a dead man.

Roman didn’t sleep much.  He kept expecting to be awoken by the faint strands of guitar.  There was no solace in dreams. The love of his life was dead, and all that was left was rust and stardust.

He descended the stairs one day for breakfast, as if nothing had changed.  His hair was neat, expression cool.

His parents rose immediately.  “Roman! Honey!”

They rushed to him, but he brushed them off.  “I can take care of myself.”

They sat back down, silent as he brewed himself a cup of tea.

Roman looked fine.  More than fine, actually.  He was gorgeous. The impossibly lovely child who had entered that room was sun-kissed and carefree, alight with love and contentment.  The person who stepped out was almost the same, but there was something different in his eyes. They were deeper, darker; pain and suffering pressed against the edges of his beauty.  He was slightly thinner, a great deal wiser, and an ocean sadder.

He was twenty-two.  He was the most beautiful being in five centuries.  He didn’t care.

“You’re sure you’re alright?”  Roman’s mother said anxiously, resisting the urge to lay her hand over his.

“Fine.”  Roman sipped his tea, looking out of the cracked window towards that old shack.  “But I’ll never love again.”

He never did.


	2. In Which Remy is the Human Version of "ugh"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warnings:  
> \- descriptions of hunting and death  
> \- very non-graphic animal death  
> \- non-graphic blood mention  
> \- unwanted sexual advances  
> \- death threats  
> \- forced engagement
> 
> What a fun, light-hearted story we have going here, kids

Prince Remy of Parietal was shaped like a dagger - thin, sharp, and angular.  His features, his clothes, his words - everything about him was bold. He moved with a certain carelessness, brash and inelegant.  If his ambitions were to become a ballerina, his dreams would be hopelessly cut against his knife-like limbs. As it was, he did not want to be a ballerina, nor did he particularly want to become king.  

Most kingly activities, while he didn’t particularly abhor them, were rather dull in his eyes.  He found no joy in presiding over court, hosting grand balls, or the endless paperwork (paperwork came into being sometime between Europe and MySpace) associated with creating new laws.  Everything in the world paled in comparison to his one true love.

Hunting.

There was nothing like it.  Remy lived for the rush of defeating his enemies, no matter how great or mere.  There was this one particular moment, when his victims collapsed on the threshold between life and death, that he could see the stillness begin to take over.  He could see the creature fighting back against the thing he had inflicted - the ultimate sleep. He laid them to rest, one after the other after the other. Sleeping.

From death and sleep and taxes, there was no escape.  He laid something to rest at least once a day. When he started, it was only the grand opponents - lions and elephants and bears.  It came, however, that he appreciated the challenge each enemy could offer. He could spend a whole day tracking a lone falcon though the sky, padding down river after one singular salmon, letting his ears guide him to the buzzing of a certain dragonfly.

Boring kingly activities didn’t exactly lend themselves for a lot of leisurely hunting, however, so he had the Zoo of Death constructed.  Each of the five floors held a different opponent. The first held opponents of speed: cheetahs and falcons and hummingbirds. The second held the strong: elephants and rhinos and gorillas.  The third held poisonous opponents: vipers and black widows and deadly wasps. The fourth held enemies of the mind, those that struck fear into the hearts of whoever dared to gaze upon them: the shrieking eels and the trouble-toothed lions and Cthulhu.

The fifth floor was entirely empty.  Prince Remy was waiting, waiting and hoping, for his match in wits and strength, the strongest enemy he would ever put to sleep.  It was an unlikely find, he knew; yet still, the fifth floor lie in wait.

  


He was cornering a coyote when the issue of King Terrence came up.

“Please, don’t let me interrupt your vital work,” The Count drawled, peering warily at him through the bars of the cage.  “I’m sure this can wait.”

“Ugh, chill out, babe.”  Remy experimentally hefted one of his throwing knives, bouncing it in his hand and eyeing the cowering animal.  “I just need a sec.” He nodded to the attendant. “Open it.”

The far door to the cage swung open into a narrow tunnel, and the coyote sprinted for freedom, faster and faster as it caught sight of the sunlight.

The Count sighed.  “There’s really nothing-”

Remy flung his arm forward, knife flying, and the sound of paws hitting the dirt abruptly cut off.

“-important,” The Count finished weakly.  The Prince turned to him, smile knife-sharp and eyes gleaming fiercely from behind his tinted spectacles.

“Now, what was it that you needed?”

“Well” - The Count cleared his throat, drawing himself up - “as you know, King Terrence is a _perfectly_ proper ruler-”

“Skip to the important stuff.”  Remy pulled a piece of chicle out of his pocket (a new and thrilling invention) and chewed it for a moment before blowing a bubble (an old but still thrilling invention).

“He’s dying,” Deceit sighed, resolving himself to break into the castle accountants’ offices and give himself a raise.  He deserved it.

(For the record, King Terrence was only dying on paper.  The physicians had been slipped enough gold coins to write down whatever he wanted; that was, as it turned out, the ability to say “I can’t, I’m dying” whenever anyone asked him to do something he didn’t want to, like rule a kingdom.)

“Damn.”  Remy twisted his mouth sourly, retrieving his knife and carelessly wiping the crimson coat off on his pants.  “Guess I gotta get married then.”

  


“Heard you’re kicking the can,” Remy said conversationally to King Terrence as the two of them and the Count gathered.  “That sucks big time.”

“Yes,” Terrence said emphatically.  “I am most certainly dying and that is why I cannot do anything but relax and watch birds.  Cough cough.”

Deceit blinked at him.  “Did he just say the words ‘cough cough’?”

“Sorry I’m late!”  Queen Valerie chirped, bustling into the room.  She was bright-eyed, rosy cheeked, and easily the most beloved person in the kingdom.  King Terrence and she had married largely for convenience when Remy was still a child who only knew wicked stepmothers from the fairy tales.

“You’re fine, Evil Stepmother,” he assured her fondly (he had caught onto that nickname in his younger and more vulnerable years and had never quite let it go.  Valerie didn’t terribly mind, even though it had inspired a character in some “Cinderella” story. Oh well, she was sure _that_ would never catch on).  “Now, who am I marrying? Let’s just pick someone and get it over with.”

“Hey, since I’m retiring, shouldn’t Remy get married now?”  Terrence asked, completely distracted by the pelican swooping by the window.  His hand, however, was pensively clasped across his mouth, so all everyone else heard was ‘hmumblemumble Remy mumblembumble’.

“What was that?”  The Count asked.

Valerie, who spoke Mumble, Baby, Gallifreyan, Olde Englishe, and Spanish, responded, “he said, ‘whoever marries you would get one fantastically handsome life partner’.”

Remy preened.  “He’s not looking too bad himself.”

“Yes,” The Count hissed, “it’s almost like he’s not actually dying and just wants to relax in the royal palace, watching birds all day.”

They all laughed at the sheer ridiculousness of that concept.

“We just got a new Miracle Worker,” Valerie responded once she was done wiping away tears of mirth.  “So of course he doesn’t look bad.”

“You fired Joan?”  Remy blinked. “I thought they were the only one left.”

“Another came in with very high credentials,” The Count said solemnly, “their own good word.  It’s not like this some unspecified time where people can just lie about their medical training, after all.”

More boisterous laughter.

“Oh, yeah, I got a new Miracle Worker,” Terrence mumbled.

“He says ‘you can’t marry just anyone’,” Valerie not-at-all helpfully supplied.

Remy groaned.  “Ugh, that means Emile, doesn’t it?”

“Ah, yes, because there’s a _multitude_ of better matches, politically speaking,” The Count drawled.

Emile Picani, heir to the Occipital throne, was heinous to Remy for literally no other reason than being heir to the Occipital throne.  The two kingdoms across the Parietal channel (or Occipital channel, depending on which kingdom you were in) had survived over the years largely by going to war with each other.  There was the “Potato” Versus “Puh-ta-to” Discrepancy, the Tuna Fish Feud, the Water Bottle War (Occipitalians took environmentalism very seriously), which temporarily plunged them both into insolvency, only to be remedied by the Ruby Rift, where they got rich again by banding together and robbing everyone within thieving distance.

“I wonder if they hunt.”  Remy sipped his Starbucks thoughtfully (the majority of mega-corporations have been around to rip you off since the beginning of time, and will continue to do so long after humanity has perished).  “I don’t care about personality as long as they know their way around a bow.”

“I met them when I went over for a diplomat’s meeting,” Valerie volunteered.  “They were rather lovely.”

Remy pursed his lips thoughtfully.  “Skin?”

“Satiny.”

“Lips?”

“Number or color?”

Remy rolled his eyes.  “Color, Evil Stepmother.”

“Caramel.  Cheeks the same.  Large eyes, honey-colored.”

“Sounds absolutely scrumptious.”  Deceit rolled his eyes.

“Yes,” Remy mused.  “Form?”

“Lean.  Clothed divinely.  They have the largest collection of sweater vests this side of the Atlantic.”

The Prince sighed.  “Well, make up some absolutely ridiculous, stupid holiday no one should ever celebrate-”

“-Columbus Day-” Terrence chimed in.

“-Perfect, and have them over for a state dinner.”

“Then it’s settled!”  Valerie smiled. “I’ll send out an invitation today.”

  


Unfortunately, this was some vaguely middle-age-ish time period, before even e-mail had been invented.  So they just sent Emile a message on MySpace. They responded with a ‘rawr XD’, and arrived in the capital city a few weeks later.

Remy was rather pleasantly surprised when the heir first walked into the throne room.  Emile was a soft, warm person, with sparkling eyes and a bright, bubbling voice. As promised, their eyes were the color of honey, skin that of caramel, and form graceful and lithe.  They didn’t quite rank within the top two hundred, but they were still exceptionally lovely.

“It’s a pleasure to receive you, your majesty.”  He swept into a bow before them, every inch the proper prince.  Yeah, he was definitely going to tap that.

“The pleasure is mine, your your majesty.”  Emile responded in kind, skirts rustling as they ducked into a demure bow.

“No, but it will be be tonight,” Remy muttered.

“What?”  Emile blinked.

“What?”  Remy flashed a brilliant smile.  “Nothing. I was just hoping we could cut out some formalities.  Why don’t you call me Remy?”

“Then, please” - they straightened up and hit Remy with a million-kilowatt grin - “call me Emile.”

“You got it, babe.”  Remy offered his arm, and they took it with a laugh.

“Well then, Remy, why don’t you show me around?”

  


The day actually passed quite pleasantly for both parties; Remy showed Emile the magnificent castle gardens where the air hung thick with the smell of jasmine, the thick, mysterious forests where strange creatures blinked round, yellow eyes, and the castle itself.  Emile was enamoured with the grand ballroom, marveling at the shining marble floors and grand, sweeping picture windows.

They held out a hand for Remy, and he took it eagerly, sweeping them across the dance floor in a whirl of their skirts and his hand slowly creeping lower.  Emile rolled their eyes and gently but firmly resettled his hand on their waist, allowing him to spin them around the room one last time.

Emile didn’t talk much, just interjecting with clever quips and fun facts.  It was almost as one of the defining aspects of his characterization - let’s say rapidly-projected pictures that somehow conveyed motion - hadn’t been invented yet.  Weird.

Nonetheless, the day passed quickly and pleasantly.

  


By dinnertime, the two were rather heavily… if not enamoured, convinced they could be happy with the other for the sake of a political alliance (Emile) and wondering with rapt attention exactly was under those shapeless sweater vests (Remy).

At 8:23 there seemed every chance of a lasting bond being forged between Parietal and Occipital.

At 8:24 the two kingdoms were on the brink of war.

What happened was simply this:

At 8:23 exactly, dinner was brought out through the servant’s door to the west.  Remy, Emile, The Count, and various nobles were gathered around the long table of the grand dining hall.  It should be noted that, as this was a grand occasion, a great number of nobility was gathered around, gossiping and cooing over the person they knew could one day marry their prince.

At 8:32:07, King Terrence still hadn’t wandered in through the King’s Entrance.  At this point, the feasting had already began, but he wouldn’t mind. He was rather prone to wandering and showing up late; people had been known to starve before he got around to starting a feast.  His belated presence, however, simply reinforced the whispers on the edge of the court. His health had been declining lately, the poor thing. It was about time the Prince settled down with a lovely little thing like the foreign Heir.  Queen Valerie was absent as well, but given that she and many of the more sycophantic court members didn’t get along, this wasn’t a surprise either.

At 8:32:15, Prince Remy, soaking in the admiring glances the courtiers sent the way of him and his future spouse (it wasn’t like Emile was going to say no, after all), commented loudly and pointedly how well the two Heirs had been getting along.  Emile, vaguely embarrassed, murmured something about what a nice castle it was.

At 8:32:23, a courtier commented as to what an attractive couple the heirs made.  Emile flushed and offered thanks with an awkward laugh. Remy smirked and draped an arm around their shoulders.  “It looks like we’re… _compatible_ in more ways than one.”

At 8:32:32, Remy’s fingers were toying with the neckline of Emile’s shirt, his fingers grazing their skin; they tensed, swallowing hard.  “Dinner looks delicious,” they managed, hand clenching at their side. “Why don’t you start eating?”

Remy leaned in until they were cheek-to-cheek, and Emile could smell the heady wine coating his breath.  “How can I when there’s something much more delicious beside me?”

At 8:32:39, another courtier, noticing their position, called out for the foreign heir to give their Prince a kiss, and the room burst out into laughter and cheers.  Remy arched an eyebrow at Emile expectantly, but they just blanched and shook their head. “I don’t want to,” they told him quietly.

He nodded and leaned back, but his arm stayed tight around their shoulders.

At 8:32:40, Emile looked up at him, expecting him to quiet down the courtieers, but he was laughing along with them.  Emile smiled tightly and said something about having to use the bathroom. They shrugged off Remy’s arm and gathered their skirts, making a beeline for the exit as hot prickles of anger and discomfort crawled up their scalp.

At 8:32:45, the disappointed calls of the courtiers (who mostly hung around the castle to take advantage of the very, very liberal supplies of wine and ale), seeped into Remy’s ears, and, very much an entitled frat boy ahead of his time (frats, thankfully, hadn’t been invented yet), he made a show of standing up to follow Emile.

At 8:32:50, Prince Remy, drunk on wine and the admiration of his court, marched after them; whirling them around, he grabbed Emile’s waist with one hand and their chin with the other, smirking.  “Come on, baby,” he growled, “just one kiss.”

“I said no!” Emile snarled and slapped him.

The time was 8:24 on the dot.

Remy stood quite still for a moment, frozen.  Slowly, he pressed one hand to his reddening cheek.  “No one has ever dared raise a hand to me before.” He turned to face Emile, gray eyes flashing.  “Or reject me.”

“Then I say it’s high time.”  Emile stood unwaveringly, arms crossed.

“Well then, your highness.”  Remy nodded slowly, a hand drifting down to the sheath at his side. “Feel free to run.”

And Emile did.

  


“Damn them,” Remy snarled, voice rough as he stormed into the council room.  “Damn them!”

“What the hell have you done?”  Deceit hissed, slithering after him.  “Heir Emile was an important political ally.  Not that _politics_ is that important when you’re running a kingdom, I suppose!”

“I really wish you hadn’t done that,” Valerie, who had spies everywhere, sighed, perched in the window sill and sipping tea a mug of tea shaped like a snowman (novelty mugs have been around as long as there have been people to exhale air through their nose in a vaguely amused almost-chuckle at them).  “Occipital is going to be furious.”

“Forget Occipital.”  Remy ground his teeth.  “I’ll conquer it sometime.  I’ve wanted to ever since I was a kid anyway.”  He ran a hand through his hair and paced, much to the later displeasure of the servant in charge of cleaning up those muddy boot prints.  “People laugh when your spouse doesn’t want you. I won’t have that.” His steely gaze snapped over to the Queen. “Find someone else.”

Valerie waved a hand helplessly.  “Who? There aren’t too many nobles of marrying age within distance.”

“I don’t care!”  Remy stopped, trembling with tension.  “Someone gorgeous. The most beautiful person you can think of.  Someone who people will look at and go, ‘wow, Prince Remy must be amazing to score someone like that’!”

The Count slithered forward, head cocked.  “What if they aren’t royal?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“What if they can’t hunt?”

“Have you not been listening to me?!”  Remy whirled on him, eyes flashing. “I don’t care if they can’t spell!  Find me someone gorgeous!”

The Count smiled thinly.  “He’s already been found.”

  


“A farmer?”  Remy rolled the words off his tongue experimentally, then pulled a face, as if they left an unpleasant aftertaste.  “I don’t know if I could marry a _farmer_ under the best circumstances. People might laugh if he was the best I could do.”

They sat on their horses atop a sloping hill above a rural town not too far from the capital city of Parietal.  The Count’s horse was jet black, corded with muscle, and fitted with wickedly sharp iron shoes. Beside him, the Prince rode one of his legendary great whites, the only breed that could keep up with his indefatigable hunts.  Next to it, The Count’s horse looked like a toy rocking horse.

The Count just shrugged, waiting in silence as their horses filled the air with soft snorts and the sound of stamping hoofs.  “We can always leave.”

“No, it’s fine.”  Remy shrugged. “I mean we’re already-”

His words quite simply died as Roman slowly rode past.  “I think I’ll take him,” The Prince said quietly, then shook himself.  “Gotta go lay on the charm.” With a wink at The Count, he thundered down the hill.

“I am the Prince, and you’re going to marry me,” he said, quite swavely, cutting Roman off and making The Lady Sterling Charlotte No-Tail the Fourth rear back in alarm.

“I am a peasant,” Roman replied archly, stroking his hand against his horse’s neck until she calmed, “and I refuse.”

Remy blinked, then flipped up his sunglasses and blinked again, just so the gesture could be impressed upon the gorgeous peasant.  “I am the Prince, and you can’t refuse.”

Roman crossed his arms, taking in this great and terrible rider and his great and terrible horse.  “I am a peasant, and I just did.”

Remy glared, wondering if those good looks were really worth it and coming to the forlorn conclusion that they were.  “I am the Prince, and refusal means death.”

It was the eyes, Remy realized.  They were deep and dark and tragic, giving the peasant an air of distant glamor, despite his surroundings.  Remy had never seen such sad eyes in his entire life.

They gazed at him steadily as Roman responded, without hesitation, “kill me then.”

Remy gritted his jaw.  “I am the Prince, and I’m not _that_ bad.”  He sulked, popping another piece of chicle in his mouth.  “What’s so bad about marrying me?”

“Marriage involves love.”  Roman’s hand strayed unconsciously to the broken guitar string tied around his wrist.  “Love isn’t something that I do anymore.”

Remy groaned.  “Ugh, a sob story.  Of course. Look, babe.”  He flipped his sunglasses back down and shrugged.  “Love isn’t a part of the deal. I just gotta get somebody to stay on the throne, you feel?  So, like, either you marry me, become fabulously rich and universally beloved, and give out apples to orphans or whatever, or you don’t” - he smiled, knife-sharp - “and I kill you right now.”

Sensing Roman’s distress, The Lady Sterling Charlotte No-Tail the Fourth backed up, but he held her steady.  “You do realize we could never have an heir,” he managed, grasping for an out.

“An heir?”  Remy blew a bubble, popped it, and snorted.  “Who cares about an heir, babe? The system of the monarchy is inherently totes ridic, and way favors the first-born for no freaking reason. Besides, _I_ was adopted anyway.”  (This made sense as, even with that time’s rudimentary knowledge of genetics, no one thought a Black King and a Latina Queen’s platonic marriage would produce a White Prince.)

Roman stared at him with those tragic eyes for a long moment.  “I’ll never love you.”

“I wouldn’t want it if I had it.”

“Then, by all means.”  A weight settled on Roman’s chest, crushing him, and he closed his eyes painfully.  “Let us wed.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the support on the first chapter! So much love to everyone who has subscribed, bookmarked, given kudos, and, my favorite people in the world, my lovely commenters! Thanks for joining me on this ride
> 
> Roast me if you see a typo, cowards


	3. In Which Roman needs Espresso for his Depresso

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tws: depression, controlling relationships, minor character death, blood, injury, misgendering, verbal abuse

If you had a good narrator (one who, say, didn’t constantly interject with parenthetical remarks), the entire first half of this chapter could be boiled down to ‘what with one thing and another, three years passed’.  After all, the allure of this story is the drama, isn’t it? This is an epic love story where one party dies in the first chapter and the other is abducted into royalty. Why would you care about Roman’s subjugation to the whims of a terrible prince?  Who on Earth would care to read the political and legal drama over how the prince can’t marry just anyone? What’s the point of belaboring Roman’s pains over the loss of his love, his life, his freedom?

Unfortunately for you, you do not have a good narrator.

  


Ignoring the fact that Roman would rather take a dagger directly to the chest than be anywhere near his fiancé, being a future ruler wasn’t that bad.

Sure, he had been forcibly taken from his parents, his forests, and the only place he had ever known, but at least the food was good.  

Besides, he didn’t really have time to dwell on his misfortunes.  Roman’s days were filled with Heir training. Day to day, month to month, tutors filled his head with how to curtsy and pour tea and address visiting nobles and politely ignore peasants, until his brain felt stuffed with cotton and his eyes drooped.  He collapsed into bed each night, miserable and tired, and waited for restless sleep.

He didn’t like his dreams.  They were filled with knife-sharp, leering princes and eyes like the sea after a storm, so far, far away.

Roman always woke up, heart racing and eyes watering.  He gripped the guitar string around his wrist so tightly he bruised.  It was always hard to sleep after that.

 

“You look tired, My Liege,” Nizhoni, his handmaid, commented as she unceremoniously flung open the windows.  The edges of her deep brown skin glowed in the morning light, and she nodded in satisfaction at the rising sun.  “None of that, now. It’s a lovely day.”

Roman groaned eloquently and pulled a pillow over his face.  “Five more minutes.”

“That’s not in your schedule,” she trilled, crisply unfolding a marked sheet of paper.  She was a middle-aged, matronly sort of woman who abhorred anything that hadn’t been scheduled an excess of two weeks in advance.

Roman dragged himself up to glare at the accursed schedule.  If looks could kill, the poor thing would be incinerated, the ashes would be stabbed, and the stabbed ashes would be hurled into the deepest vacuum of space.

“Someone’s in a sour mood,” she tisked, laying out bread and fresh fruits for his breakfast - a luxury he hardly could’ve acquired before the castle.  “What’s gotten into you?”

“I can hardly sleep,” he said, softly, staring down at his hands.

She blinked at him slowly, before straightening up and wiping at imaginary wrinkles out of her apron.  “Well, you simply need to keep your mind occupied! I’ll see if I can do anything about your studies, and…”

Roman sighed, tuning her out.  (This was before people could pop on headphones to signify they weren’t paying attention, but if Roman could, he would.)  He let himself be bustled to his classes, sat listlessly through a lecture on the finer points of bouquet decoration, and wished for the castle to be hit by a meteor.

  


It was that night, when Nizhoni was leading him back to his chambers, that Roman first noticed the door.

(Now, you may think it strange that Roman needed someone to guide him around the castle, and you would be entirely correct.  The castle had been built anywhere between one hundred and five thousand years ago. Of course, it was also possible it had been build that day, and the memories of it had been implanted into everyone but Roman’s feeble human minds.  Regardless, the castle was intentionally labyrinthine, with twisting, winding passageways and rooms within rooms. According to legend, it was so assassins couldn’t find the royal families, to keep them out. Still, Roman had always had the uncomfortable feeling it was actually made to keep things in.)

Nizhoni had been strolling down the twisting corridors with the utmost confidence, before she stopped dead in her tracks and sucked in a frustrated breath.  “My Liege, I’m afraid I’ve forgotten something. Could you wait here a moment?”

“Sure,” Roman agreed wearily, leaning against the ornate, rusting door behind him.

“It won’t be but a moment,” she assured him, already bustling away.

“Great,” Roman informed an empty hallway.

He huffed out a breath and sunk down, letting his head thunk back against the heavy oak.  Exhausted. That’s all he was lately - listless, dull, bored.

Tired.

He let his head loll to the side, and a flash of gold caught his eye.  A padlock. Immediately, he was on his knees, inspecting it. Like the door, it was almost entirely rushed over and dull.  Almost.

There was a thin line of gold by the keyhole.  Someone had picked the lock.

Soft footfalls came from behind him, but he ignored it.  It was probably just another servant. They seemed to all be scared of him, for whatever reason, because they either just ignored him or stammered their way out of a conversation as quickly as possible.

“My liege?”

Whoops.

“Heya, Nizhoni!”  Roman shot to his feet with an innocent smile.  “How ya doing?”

“Quite fine.”  She arched an eyebrow but mercifully didn't comment. “Come along then.”

He fell into step beside her, but then paused.  “Nizhoni?” He asked, casting a glance back at the door. “What's that?”

“Oh, that?”  Nizhoni cast it a dismissive glance.  “Just the old library. All boarded up now.  I’m surprised you haven’t seen it before; it’s the window directly below yours.  Anyway, as I was saying, you'll have to be up at…”

Her voice dulled to a murmuring of white noise as Roman’s mind began racing.  A library. An old library. Directly below his window.

A small smile crept across his face, and, for the first time in months, Roman felt awake.

  


He made his first voyage there by slipping out of his window and grappling down the castle’s side.  He had slit his bedsheets into several braided ropes, and he really had to come up with some good excuse for why.  (Current contenders were: ‘a dragon did it’, ‘I was trying to make a new dress’, and ‘a quantum nanotechnology CPU pill made me do it’.)

He had hung there that first night, almost dizzy with the thought that the guards perpetually stationed outside his door didn’t know where he was.

He could run.

He could jump on The Lady Sterling Charlotte No-Tail and ride as fast as she would take him, wind rushing through his hair and hands growing red with the cold as the stars rushed past above head like so many diamonds and the Earth became a blur and his thoughts were drowned out under the pounding of hoofs.  And he could run and run and run until he finally arrived -

Nowhere.

That was the problem.

There was nowhere for him to run.

Roman gripped the makeshift rope until it bit into his hands and sighed.  He had gotten word of his parent’s death not too long ago. There was nowhere for him now but here.

Roman kicked out and shattered the library window.

  


It became habit.  Mercifully, Nizhoni didn’t comment on the ruined sheets Roman kept coiled under his bed, simply supplying him with new ones without being asked.  Night after night, Roman slipped out of his window and into a private sanctuary, away from leering princes and dull classes and people who never quite looked him in the eyes.

“And every atom that belongs to me, as good as belongs to you,” Roman murmured to himself, eyes skimming over the nearly-faded words of a cracked leather volume.  Unconsciously, his hand strayed to the broken guitar string tied around his wrist. Rough metal dragged across the pads of his fingers, and he jerked away, as if burned, and slammed the book shut.  That was enough Whitman for the night.

(Now, it should be noted that this was _before_ Walt Whitman, but the library was just old enough to have a copy of his works, which was really quite fortunate for our Roman.  Any newer, and he'd have been entirely inundated with Percy Shelley.)

He cleared his throat, tried to push down the hot, painful coal glowing in his chest.  It was always there, but sometimes it was easier to ignore. He dragged another tome towards himself, a history of politics in the region.  Somewhere between his third dinner with Prince Remy and his sixth time seeing the man covered in blood after a trip to his heinous Zoo, Roman had realized there was no way that man was ever going to make a good king.  So, he reasoned, he was supposed to be Remy’s partner anyway. Why not be a true ruler alongside him?

He taught himself politics and biology and history and diplomacy and sciences.  It was a warm sort of nostalgia, drowning himself in a book as a candle burned low beside him.  Sometimes, he looked up to catch a glimpse of a ramshackle hut, a few yards from his bedroom in his parent’s farm, to share something incredible.

But there was no one there.

  


The one downside to this whole ordeal was that Roman’s sleep schedule, once fragmented, now flew completely out the window.  Literally. He was escaping out the window.

It was on perhaps the sixth consecutive day of simply refusing to wake up in the morning that Nizhoni snapped.

Roman laid limp in bed, as she pointedly threw the window open.  “Five more minutes,” he groaned.

She turned to him, face a mask of disapproval and hands placed firmly on her hips.  “My Liege, you have to get up.”

“Can’t. I’m dying.”

She huffed, frustrated.  “Honestly, My Liege, if I had known you couldn’t control yourself, I’d never have shown you-”  Nizhoni’s eyes widened. She clamped her jaw shut.

“Wait a minute.”  Roman shot up; his hands flew to his mouth, eyes wide.  “Did you show me the library… on purpose?”

“Oh, don’t make a fuss,” Nizhoni sniffed, hands shaking as she laid out Roman’s outfit for the day.  “I could hardly have you wasting away in here, now could I? Besides, maybe now you’ll-”

She was cut off my Roman flying to and throwing his arms around her, laughing.  “Oh, by Odin, Nizhoni, thank you!” (Norse mythology was around at this point, but it hadn’t quite become mythology, nor myth.  Just -ology.) He pulled back, grabbing onto her arms and beaming. “You’re wonderful!”

Nizhoni cleared her throat, a flush on the bridge of her nose.  (Now, don’t make the mistake of thinking Nizhoni had any designs on our Roman.  While neither she nor anyone else could mistake Roman’s beauty, she was happily wed to another girl from her tribe, and the two of them spent many pleasant hours as many of us do: imagining toppling the current governmental structure and eating ice cream.)  “Yes, well, don’t mention it. Please. Yours aren’t exactly sanctioned visits.”

She briskly untangled herself from Roman and smoothed out her apron.  “Honestly, my liege, you mustn’t be so improper. I’m just a handmaid, after all.”

“You're the only friend I have here!”  Roman protested.

Nizhoni stepped backwards.  “No,” she said, eyes darting towards the open door, “I cannot be that for you, My Liege.”  She raised her voice, eyes imploring. “Prince Remy is your friend, of course. He has been so good to you and our people.”  Her voice was flat, like she was reading from a script and had very, very, painfully little skill in acting. “You know his door is always open.”

The realization hit Roman all at once.  He was _meant_ to feel alone.  What he had thought was dull classes and servants being shy of interacting with him, simply because he was engaged to the prince, was deliberate.

Remy was to be the only one he could love.

Two guards passed by the door.  Roman wouldn't have noticed the way they glanced assessingly inside if he hadn't been looking.

Nizhoni looked at him with a firm sort of sadness.

“Yes,” Roman said, and the words felt like bile on his tongue, “Prince Remy is my friend.”

 

So Roman made a comfortable home in denial and put in a down payment on repression.   He let himself pretend, sometimes, on those nights in the library. He let himself think that Virgil was just in the other room, gone to get them something to drink, and listening to Roman read to him.

During the day, with his tutors and Prince Remy and that Count, Roman did his very best not to think at all.

Days passed.  Months passed.  Years passed. It is easy to say such a thing, but nearly impossible to live it.  Imprisonment, no matter how grand, is torture. Yet, throughout it, Roman sat in his gilded cage, smiling sweetly and cooing brightly like a good little pet while his mind wandered far away, to purple hair and eyes like the sea after a storm.

 

So, all this to say, ‘what with one thing and another, three years passed’.

  


The crown square of Parietal was filled as never before, awaiting the presentation of Prince Remy’s spouse-to-be, a commoner by the name of Roman.  For almost forty hours, a steady stream of people had swarmed the square, until people were perched atop lamp (tragically, the only LAMP in this story) poles and leaning precariously out of fourth-story windows.  The air was thick with the sound of excited murmurs and the faint unwashed stench of peasants. Still, more and more from further and further away joined as the hour of presentation drew near. No one there had seen the future Heir before, but rumors of his beauty nestled in everyone’s ear.

At noon, when the announcement was slated to take place, the crowd held their breath, excitement skittering through the square.  Nothing happened. Queen Valerie quickly peaked her head out, offered an apologetic smile, and ducked back in with a thunderous expression.

At half-past noon, Prince Remy was unceremoniously shoved onto the balcony by the queen, squinting bearily from behind tinted shades.  “Oh shit, that was today?” he muttered to himself, before drawing himself and blinking through the edges of a hangover. He raised his arms as the Queen and King joined him, standing a respectful distance back.

At this point, everyone knew of the king’s failing health (there were rumors that he was dying, he was dead, or he had been dead for seven years and there was a doppelgänger in his place, like Avril Lavigne.  This was after Avril Lavigne.), but were rather confused to see him looking the same as ever and apparently in good health.  He cheerfully waved at the crowd before getting distracted by a nearby flock of doves.

“My beloved peeps!”  Prince Remy declared dramatically.  “As I am sure many of you, my… beloved subjects have heard, my… beloved father’s heath is, like, totes garbo.”  He cleared his throat. “Which isn’t that shocking since he’s like…” He lowered his sunglasses and squinted at Terrence.  “Ninety-six?”

Terrence shrugged.  “No one can find anything on Google, so let’s go with that.”

“He’s ninety-six!”  Remy proclaimed. “So the time has come for me to take a partner on my awesome ascension to the throne, so I might be a fair and just ruler or whateves.”

The crowd began to stir restlessly, and Remy flashed them a grin.

“Soon, it’s gonna be our country’s five hundredth anniversary, and, that night, I’m going to marry someone who was once a commoner like you peasants.”  He smirked. “Although, maybe you won’t find him so common now. Do you want to meet him?”

The crowd roared, and Remy soaked in the attention, beaming.  “My people! Meet your future ruler: Heir Roman!”

The balcony doors swung open.

The crowd gasped.

The twenty-five year Heir far outshone the twenty-two-year-old mourner.  His figure faults were gone, the too-bony elbow having fleshed out nicely.  The pudgy wrist could not have been trimmer. His hair, still shining the color autumn, was devoid of its previous snares and split ends; he had a full-time team of five hairdressers.  (This was long, long after hairdressers. Truly, hairdressers have been around since the advent of humanity, the first one being Adam; The King James scholars do their very best to muddy this point.)  His skin was still hickory-brown, but now with two handmaidens assigned to each limb and four to the rest of him, it actually appeared to gently glow.

Prince Remy grabbed his hand, and Roman hid his wince behind a smile.  Their joined hands were thrust high in the air, as if Roman were a trophy.  The crowd cheered.

“M’kay, good enough,” Remy said and began toting Roman back inside the castle.

“Wait, hold on.”  Roman stopped and pulled away, unwilling to give up the blue sky, the fresh breeze, the people who weren’t afraid to speak to him.  “They’ve been waiting for forever. I’d like to go speak with some.”

“Oh, babe.”  Remy caught Roman’s arm with an uncomfortable chuckle.  “We don’t, like… interact with them.”

“I’ve known more than a few commoners in my time,” Roman said archly, peeling Remy’s fingers off of his arm.  “They will not, I think, harm me.”

With that, he left the balcony and reappeared a moment later on the grand steps of the castle.  Quite alone, he walked into the crowd. Where he stepped, people parted, almost afraid to sully him.

“It’s alright,” he said with a soft smile.  “My name is Roman. It’s nice to meet you all.”

Up on the balcony, The Count oozed towards the railing and, with his sharp mismatched eyes, took in the looks of awe and love from the people.  Slowly, he smiled.

No one who was there would ever forget that day.  None of them had seen someone so beautiful, been so close to perfection, and the great many adored him instantly. The more pragmatic, while admitting he was lovely, deigned to reserve any judgement on him as heir-consort.  Some, of course, were bitterly jealous. Very few hated him.

Only three were planning to murder him.

Roman, of course, knew none of this.  He was smiling, and, when someone wanted to touch the edge of his fine white dress, he let them, and when they wanted to touch his hand and speak to him, he let them do that too.  He was, despite everything, still hopeful he might make a good ruler one day; he had studied very hard, after all. So he kept his smile gentle and words kind and posture erect. If someone had told him his death was so close, he simply would’ve released a startled, disbelieving laugh.

Yet, in the farthest corner of the Crown Square, by the highest building in the land, hiding in the deepest, darkest shadow, the man in black stood, waiting.

His boots were black and leather, his clothes some sort of black cotton.  His mask was blacker than a raven, but blackest of all were his eyes, those stormy eyes.

Cruel and black and deadly.

  


Roman was more than a little drained after his earlier triumph.  After so long in isolation, being so immersed with other people was a shock.  He took a short nap; then, as the rosy-fingered evening took ahold of the sky, he donned his long-sleeved riding clothes and walked to The Lady Charlotte Sterling No-Tail the third’s stable.  After the news of his parents’ deaths, Prince Remy had apparently decided Roman was no longer a flight risk, so Roman could ride his horse, unattended, in the afternoons.

Weather permitting or not, Roman did.

It was only then, with The Lady Sterling Charlotte No-Tail the third’s hooves beating out a joyful rhythm against the soft dirt and the wind rushing in his ears, that Roman truly felt happy anymore.

He urged her faster and faster, making a flying leap over some obstacle, and giggled guiltily as she clipped and knocked it over.

“MY MAILBOX,” a woman screeched, jumping up and down frantically.  “NOW HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO GET MY OVERREACTION MEDICINE???”

“SORRY!”  Roman cried back, almost laughing, but his words were carried away by the whipping wind.

As he rode through woods and streams and heather, his mind roamed.  The walk through the crowd had struck a strange chord in him. He knew, intellectually speaking, he would be a ruler soon, but that made it so, so real.

He was going to marry Remy.

A strange sort of sickness curdled in his stomach.  He had always thought… even when he was younger, when he dreamed of his wedding, Virgil was always the one on the other side of the isle.

Still.  Roman hastily blinked away the tears that threatened to fall.  There was nothing wrong with marrying someone he didn’t love. If the whole world did it, it wouldn’t be so great, what with everyone just sort of being passive-aggressive all the time, but some sacrifices could be made.  Roman was going to help the kingdom. He was going to be the ruler of Parietal.

Every since he had become heir-in-training, everyone had told Roman that he was most likely the most beautiful being in the world.  Now he was going to be the richest and most powerful as well.

Don’t ask for too much from life, Roman told himself as he rode along.  Learn to be satisfied with what you have.

 

Darkness was closing in when Roman crested the hill, and, suddenly, his horse refused to go on another step.

The Lady Sterling Charlotte No-Tail the third snorted, stamping her feet, but he shushed her, stroking gently down the line of her neck.  “What’s the matter, girl?” he murmured.

That’s when he saw the trio appear, almost out of the mist.

The man in front was short, wry and pale with an angelic, gentle face.  He moved quickly, almost uncannily, on strangely skittering limbs towards Roman.

The man to his left was as dark and sharp as the sword attached to his side.  Twin scars ran down the lengths of his cheeks, partly obscured by his wire-rimmed spectacles, and a tie sat crisply at this throat.  (Don’t make the mistake of thinking this was before ties. They were a rather new invention, but not quite unheard of.) His chest swelled, but Roman of all people knew that wasn’t necessarily an indicator of who he was.

The man to the right was quite possibly the biggest person Roman had ever seen - round and freckle-faced and the approximate size of an ox. He stood, waved, and almost smiled at Roman before the other man elbowed him in the ribs.

(Roman privately thought that would do more to injure the scarred man’s elbow than the giant, but it seemed to get the point across.)

“A word?”  The short man - a Sicilian, Roman decided - rose his arms beseechingly.  His smile was even more angelic than his face.

Roman inclined his head.  “Speak.”

“My friends and I are but poor, lost circus performers,” The Sicilian explained.  “We got lost and pray there is a village nearby, where we might spend the night before a happy reunion with our trope.”

Something about his words rang false, and Roman gave a tight-lipped smile, slowly edging The Lady Sterling Charlotte No-Tail the Third backwards.  “There is no one nearby, not for miles.”

The angelic smile didn’t falter.  “Then there will be no one to hear you scream,” he said and jumped towards him.

If Roman cried out, it was only from shock.  There was nothing, no sensation besides fingers tapping at his neck and then…

Roman woke to the sound of water lapping on the sides of a boat.  A blanket blinded him, and thick, course ropes bound his hands together.

“What is that you're ripping?”  A voice painted with a Spanish accent asked.

“Fabric from an Occipitalian officer’s uniform.”  The Sicilian replied. The sound of a hand hitting a horse.  “Get!”

Hoofs thudded off into the distance, and Roman spared a moment to pray his old friend would make it home safely.

“The prince will be suspicious once they see the fabric on his precious betrothed’s horse.  Once they find his body dead on the shore of Occipital, suspicions will be confirmed.” The Sicilian then released an evil laugh that ranked a solid eight out of ten on malice, and nine out of ten on glee, but needed improvement in the resonance category.

“I still don't think it's right,” another voice, which most certainly shot off the Richter scale in terms of resonance, chimed in, “just killing an innocent person like that.”

“Did I go mad?”  The boss snarled.  “Or did the word _think_ escape your lips? You were not hired for your _brains_ , you hippomocratic landmass!”

(Roman very well knew, as I'm sure that you do, that “hippomocratic” is, of course, not a real word.  Sometimes, however, people who are given dangerous levels of power - such as presidents, writers, and bloodthirsty Sicilians - make up new words when no one bothers to correct them.)

“I just feel better when I know what’s going on, that’s all,” the giant mumbled.  “People always think I’m so stupid, but I’m just a little confused.”

“The reason people think you’re so stupid is because you are,” the boss shot back.  “Now shut up and fix the sail.”

Soon, the boat was moving.  Those strange, skittering footsteps moved away.

“Peter sure does like to fuss,” the Spaniard murmured.  Roman could not see it, but he had taken the giant’s hand and squeezed it softly.

“A- _boat_ everything,” the giant agreed with a little giggle.

A half-groan, half-laugh.  “Why must you rope me into your buterching of the English language?”

“Good one!”

“That wasn’t intentional and you know!”  The Spaniard hissed.

“Suuure, Logy.”

A call came from the front of the ship.  “What are you two conspiring about?”

“Nothing!” They called in unison.

An unimpressed grunt.

“I don’t like this, Lo,” the giant said, softly.  “It’s not fair.”

“I know, Patton,” The Spaniard murmured.  “It’s just one more job, however, then we can leave Peter.  Forever.”

Patton paused for a long moment before replying.  “Together?”

“Y-yeah.”  The Spaniard cleared his throat, the faintest hint of a smile in his voice.  “Together.”

“I ship it,” Roman whispered to himself.

“Quit your bellyaching,”  Peter, apparently, snapped, coming closer.  “We don’t get the rest of our fee until we kill him and dump his body.”

“The people won’t take his death well,”  The Spaniard cautioned. “He’s become beloved.”

“And so, war will start,” Peter said smugly.

“Maybe we could just say we’re ransoming him?”  Patton said hopefully. “I’d hate for him so be so upset.”

“Oh no,” the Sicilian said, casually.  “He knows we're going to kill him.”

Roman tensed.

“What? But how?”

“Because.”  Sharp footsteps echoed across the deck, towards Roman.  “He's been listening to us this whole time.”

Fingers touched his neck again, and Roman fell back into darkness.

  


Roman, when he woke up for the second time, was about five seconds from a panic attack.  He had been kidnapped, his captors were planning to kill him, and his phone didn't have any signal! (Probably because they didn't have phones back then.)

Without pausing to think about it, he threw himself over the side of the boat.

He wriggled out of his blindfold, the water slackening the cotton.  His hands were still bound, but he kicked hard enough to make for it.  He stayed under the water as long as he dared, until his lungs burned and his nose filled with the stench of salt.

He swam, pulling on every ounce of strength he had to cut through the moonless night.

Behind him, there were cries.

“Go after him!”  The Sicilian barked.

“I can’t swim,” the Spaniard protested.

“I only doggy-paddle,” the giant said.  “It’s ruff.”

Roman continued to peel away.  His legs ached and his heart pounded in his throat.

“Don’t worry,” Peter said, suddenly calm.  “The eels will get him.”

Roman really, _really_ wished he hadn’t just said that.

“Little boy” - _not a boy,_ Roman though with a flash of irritation - “do you know what happens when the Shrieking Eels smell blood?  They go quite mad. There’s no controlling their frenzy. They’ll rip and shred and chew and consume until there’s nothing left.  We’re in a boat, so we’re quite safe, but I do worry for you, little Prince,” Peter cooed. “I’ve got a knife in my hand, pet. If you come back now, I promise we won’t hurt you.  If you don’t, I’ll slice my arm open, fill a cup, throw it, and let the eels feed. You won’t be beautiful for long then.”

Roman silently treaded water.  Although it was surely his overactive imagination, around him, he could almost hear the warning cries, low, thrumming hums that preceded feeding.

The Sicilian hissed.

“He just sliced his arm!”  The giant called, fretful.

Roman stayed quiet.

The Sicilian hissed again.

“The cup is half full!”  The sharp, scarred man announced.

Roman decided he didn’t believe them.  There were no eels. There was no blood.

“The cup is full!”  Peter called.

Surely it wasn’t.  Surely they weren’t going to kill him like this.

“Tell us where you are, or I’ll throw the blood,” Peter snarled.

Roman said nothing.

Patton made a soft, pained sound, and the scarred man shushed him comfortingly.

“Goodbye, then.”

Blood hit the water.

A pause.

The eels went mad.

  


“Hey,” Queen Valerie said to her platonic husband.  “Do you ever feel like you’re taking away from the excitement?  You know, the main plot or whatever?”

“Yeah, sure,” Terrence said absently, squinting at a flock of DoDo Birds nearby.  Weren’t those supposed to be extinct?

“No, I’m serious!”  Valerie protested, sitting up on her throne.  “Our son is going to turn out to be a tyrant, probably, his betrothed has some angsty thing going on where he recites Shakespeare to a wire tied around his wrist, and we're doing like… nothing. This whole time.”

“ _You're_ doing nothing,” Terrence responded mildly.  “I'm birdwatching.”

“Your highnessness!”  The doors flew open and a messenger, pale-faced and gaunt, rushed in.  “Heir Roman's horse has returned without him. It bears fabric from an officer of Occipital!”

“Oh heeeeeeeeell naw,” Prince Remy suddenly appeared, sucking on an overpriced drink and scowling.  “The only one who strong-arms hot people somewhere against their will is me.”

“They must have kidnapped him,” The Count, mismatched eyes flashing, stepped out from the shadows.

“Oh shoot, dude, how'd you do the creepy materializing thing?” Terrence, looking mildly impressed, asked.

“We have to go after him.”  Valerie declared, standing from her throne.  “Guard, I want a full squadron on our fastest ship across the channel.”

“I'll head it,” Remy said immediately.  At his mother’s surprised look, he shrugged.  “I mean if you can find a better hunter…”

Valerie assented.

“I'll arrange everything at once, My Queen.”  The Count disappeared with a bow, the prince and guard following him shortly.

“Oh goodness,” Valerie sighed, sinking back down.  “I just hope he’s okay.”

  


Roman was definitely not okay.

Waves of water splashed over him as the channel came to life, shaking and roaring.  The shrieking eels were here. Bloodcurdling, chilling wails pierced the air.

Something smooth brushed his leg.

Roman bit down on his bottom lip and closed his eyes.

Fortunately for all involved (save the eels that is) the moon chose that precise moment to emerge.

“There he is!”  The Spaniard called, already speeding the boat over.  Patton reached out a giant arm and scooped Roman up, back to the safety of his future murderers.

The eels howled in frustration.

“Keep him warm,” the Spaniard called from the tiller.

“He’s right.  You’ll catch a cold,” Patton clucked, taking off his cloak and wrapping Roman in it.

“Does it matter?”  Roman spat bitterly.  “You’re killing me soon enough anyway.”

Patton drew back, pained.  “I don’t want- I’m not the one who, I wouldn’t-”

“Hold your stupid tongue,” Peter snapped.

Patton immediately hushed.

“I don’t think he’s so stupid,” Roman said impulsively.  Patton looked at him, startled. “And I don’t think you’re the mastermind you make yourself out to be either.  Cutting yourself and throwing blood in the water doesn’t exactly utilize your critical thinking skills.”

“It worked didn’t it?”  Peter crossed towards him.  “You’re back, aren’t you?” He smiled thinly.  “Weak people always scream.”

“I didn’t scream,” Roman snapped back.  “The moon came out.”

Peter’s hand flew back.

“None of that.”  Patton stopped him halfway.  The Sicilian’s hand was dwarfed in his.

The tiny man glared up at the giant.  “Do you want to fight me? I don’t think you do.”

Patton immediately wilted, stepping back.  “No, sir. But don’t hit him. Please.”

The Sicilian scoffed and stalked back towards the other side of the boat.  “He would’ve screamed,” he said. “He was about to cry out. My plan _was_ ideal as _all_ of my plans are ideal.  It was the moon’s ill timing that robbed me of perfection.”  

He flipped off the moon.

 

At some point, Roman must have drifted off, because he awoke to a triumphant cry.

“There they are!”  The Sicilian pointed dead ahead.  “The Cliffs of Insanity!”

The cliffs rose, practically vertically, from the edge of the water.  Even at a distance, Roman had to tilt his head back to see where they ended.  They were, theoretically, the fastest way between Occipital and Parietal, but hardly anyone ever climbed them.  Not to say it couldn’t be done. Two people were known to have made the climb in the last century. One of them even survived.

“Straight for the steepest spot,” Peter commanded.

The scarred man, who was already headed there, rolled his eyes.

“Not that I care for any of your well-beings,” Roman said, “but isn’t this a bit of a suicide mission?”

Peter laughed.  “So you think. This is all going according to plan.”  He sat back on a crate, propping his feet up on the ship’s railing.  “We’ve gotten away home-free, boys.”

“Not a boy,” Roman muttered, and the Spaniard cast him a sidelong glance, touching his own chest, which was not nearly as flat as he wished.  He had said almost the same thing, once upon a time.

“No one could be following us yet?”  Patton asked, leaning against the railing.

“No one,” the Sicilian assured him.  “It would be inconceivable.”

“Absolutely inconceivable?”  the Spaniard chimed in, following Patton’s gaze.

“Absolutely, totally, and, in all other ways, inconceivable!”  Peter folded his hands behind his head and closed his eyes.

A beat.

“Although, out of curiosity, why do you ask?”

“No reason,” Patton said.  “Except we happened to look back and something’s there.”

They all rushed to the railing.

Less than a mile behind them, a small, black schooner cut quickly and silently through the moonlight waters.  A giant sail billowed above it, and a single man stood, still as a statue, at the till.

A man in black.

“Oh, that,” Peter blustered, “that is just some local fisherman out for a pleasure cruise.  At night. Through eel-infested waters.”

“Obviously,” Roman drawled.

“He’s gaining on us,” Patton fretted.

“It doesn’t matter!”  Peter snapped. “No one in Occipital knows what we’ve done, and no one in Parietal could’ve gotten here so fast.  Sail on!”

Roman couldn’t take his eyes from the black, billowing sail.  He was, admittedly, frightened by these three kidnappers. Yet, somehow, someway, that man in black filled him with an unknowable, unspeakable dread.

He stumbled back from the railing, as if that could make a difference.  He made to turn away, but paused, unwilling to take his eyes off of that frightful thing.

“Look sharp,” Peter said lowly.  “We’re here.”

The Spaniard deftly navigated the boat through the crashing waves and jagged rocks, a look of grim determination set on his scarred face.  The spray was blinding. Roman shielded his eyes and peered up, up, up at the seemingly unending face of rock.

There, dangling from the steepest part of the cliffs, was a rope.  Peter grabbed it and pulled once, twice, but it held firm.

“The ship’s almost here!”  The Spaniard called, rushing up from the helm.  “We’ve got to go.”

“Don’t tell me what to do.”  Peter scowled. “Anyway, the ship’s almost here and we have to go.”

“Remarkable observation,” Roman muttered.

“I know,” Peter said.

Patton had fashioned the rope into a harness and stood expectantly.  “All aboard!” He grinned. (This was before trains, but after witches turned people into planks of lumber, which is where the phrase truly comes from.)

The Spaniard scooped up Roman (although not without a shout of protest) and draped him around Patton’s shoulders.  Peter clung to the giant’s neck, and, with a minute of hesitation, the scarred man strapped himself to Patton’s waist.

He swallowed hard, looking at Patton.

“Hi,” Patton said, smiling softly.

The scarred man returned it, imperceptibly.  “Hello.”

“Be gay on your own time,” Peter snapped.  “Sink it.”

Patton stomped so hard the wood cracked beneath his feet.  The boat took on water as, one hand over the other, Patton slowly began to climb the Cliffs of Insanity.

 

The thing about Patton was that he was strong.  (Something the Spaniard had devoted quite a bit of thought to.)  So, although it was nearly a thousand feet up the brine-soaked rope and he was carrying three people, he wasn’t concerned in the slightest.  When it came to power, nothing worried him. If someone asked him about biology, he got knots in his stomach. If someone quizzed him on derivatives, he started sweating.  If someone asked him what the act of being an adult was called, well, that one he knew.

Adultery.

Suffice to say, strength had never been Patton’s enemy.  He could take the kick of a horse and not fall backwards.  He could scissor open a hundred-pound sack of flower effortlessly.  He had once held an elephant aloft with only the muscles in his back.  His real might, however, lay in his arms.

There had never, not in a thousand years, been arms to match Patton’s.  Not only were they massive, quick, and obedient, they were indefatigable.  He could chop down an entire forest (not that he would. Patton was rather environmentally conscious.  Global warming wasn’t a problem yet, but, when it came to be, it would exist in spite of Patton’s best efforts.), have ten axes shatter and his legs give out beneath him, but Patton’s arms would be as fresh as ever.

Therefore, even with three people strapped around him, Patton wasn’t the slightest bit perturbed.  He was actually rather happy. It was only when someone called on Patton to use his strength that he felt he wasn’t a bother to everyone.

Which is why it was so startling when the Sicilian looked down to see the man in black had sailed into the impossibly rocky harbor, grabbed ahold of the rope, and was climbing after them.

“Faster,” Peter said, softly.  Then, a roar: “Faster!”

Patton practically flew them up the rope.

“Faster!”

“I’m sorry.” Patton ducked his head.  “I thought I was going faster.”

“You’re doing wonderfully, Patton.”  The Spaniard looked up. “We’re nearly halfway there.”

“He’s gaining on us,” Peter hissed.

Roman, from his position slung around Patton’s shoulders, could see the man in black, how, indeed, he was almost flying up the rope at a rate that should’ve been impossible.  Roman’s heart seized in his chest.

Already, the man in black had cut their lead by a hundred feet.

“You’re supposed to be a giant!  That’s what I hired you for!” Peter spat.  “You’re supposedly a great and mighty thing, and yet he gains.”

“You will do well to hold your tongue,” the Spaniard hissed.  “Or you will remember why you hired _me.”_  The scabbard of his sword bounced against his leg as Patton raced higher and higher.

“He’s over halfway,” Roman said, heart pounding in his throat.

“Move, damn it!”  Peter screamed. “A hundred feet to go.”

Patton moved.  He cleared his mind of everything but ropes and arms and fingers, and the rope bit into his palms and his arms pulled and his fingers grasped as tightly as he could bear -

“He’s right behind us,” the scarred man murmured.

“He’ll never catch up!”  Peter cried. “It’s inconceivable!”

“You keep using that word,” the other man snapped.  “I do not think it means what you think it means.”

Forty feet.

Patton pulled.

Twenty.

Ten.

It was over.  Patton had done it.

They tumbled onto the ground at the top of the cliffs of insanity, and Peter flung himself towards the thick cord on the ground.  Pulling a knife from his boot, he sawed desperately.

The man in black was no more than three hundred feet away.

One strand snapped.  Two. five.

Patton, the Spaniard at his side, peered over the edge.  “He really is a good-”

The rope fell.

The Sicilian was roaring, howling in mad shrieks of victory before the Spaniard raised his voice.

“He did it.”

Peter shut his jaw immediately.  “Did what?”

“Let go in time.”

The man in black was hanging in space, clinging to the slick, sheer rocks, seven hundred feet above the waves.

Peter stared down, fascinated.  “You know, I’m quite the expert on death.  It may interest you to know the fall will kill him, not the impact.”

Patton made a small noise and turned away.

“Oh,” Peter suddenly remembered, small, beady eyes flashing.  “How rude we’re being” - he grabbed Roman by the rope binding his wrists and flung him forward to watch the man struggle - “not to share such a lovely view.”

Roman hissed and yanked away.  “Touch me again, and you’ll be joining him.”

Peter smiled thinly.  “You’re hardly in the position to be making threats.”

“Shouldn’t we be going?”  The Spaniard, watching Patton’s hands clench and shoulders tremble, suddenly asked.  “I thought you were reiterating how vital our limited time is.”

“We will be,” Peter said indulgently, “but you can’t expect me to miss a death like this.  I could stage one of these a week and sell tickets, you know. Get out of the mercenary business entirely.  Do you think his life is flashing before his eyes yet?”

“He must have strong arms,”  Patton commented with something like hope, “to hold on for so long.”

“He can’t stay there forever though,” Peter clucked.

At that moment, the man in black began to climb.

It wasn’t quick, and it wasn’t effortless, but, still, inch by inch, he climbed.

“Inconceivable!”  Peter cried.

The Spaniard whirled on him.  “Stop saying that word. It was inconceivable for anyone to be following us.  It was inconceivable for him to sail fast enough. It was inconceivable for him to climb the rope.  It was inconceivable for him to survive, and, yet, he climbs!”

Indeed, the man in black was now fifteen feet closer to the top.  Fifteen feet farther from death.

Peter, eyes gleaming nastily at the insubordination, snarled.  “When I say something is inconceivable, that’s because it is inconceivable!  This man… is not following us! A much more likely explanation is that he’s a local sailer.  Who dabbles in mountain climbing. And has the same general designation as us.” He coughed. “Regardless, he must have seen us with the Heir and must therefore die!”

“Fine then.”  The Spaniard said stiffly, before their boss could turn his eyes on the trembling Patton.  “I’ll stay behind.”

Peter nodded.  “We’ll be heading for the frontier of Occipital.  Catch up when he’s dead.”

The Spaniard inclined his head.

Peter stalked off, muttering to himself.

“I’m going to duel him right-handed,” the scarred man murmured to himself.

Patton fell to his side, Roman once more hoisted around his shoulders.  “Are you sure?”

The swordsman smirked.  “If I use my left, it’s always over too quickly.”

Patton just sighed.  “Catch up quickly.”

He smiled, making the scars on his cheeks stretch and gleam.  “Don’t I always?”

“Something feels different this time,” Patton murmured, then shook his head.  “Goodbye, Lo.” Something the scarred man didn’t dare name lingered in his expression.  His teeth worried at his bottom lip, and he took a step closer. “Logan, I…”

“Yes?”  he said, almost breathlessly.

Patton crumpled, offering a half-hearted smile too late.  “Be safe, okay?”

He wrestled down a jolt of disappointment.  “You as well.”

“I’m waiting!”  Peter snapped.

They rolled their eyes at each other.  Roman, still around Patton’s shoulders, gave a commenseral ‘ugh’.

“I’ll see you soon.”  He squeezed Patton’s hand.  “I promise.”

Patton nodded, slowly, and disappeared into the night.

The swordsman released a shaking breath and told himself to focus.  He had a job to do.

He stared down the long, tall cliff face at the man in black and, slowly, smiled.

Logan Montoya drew his sword.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we are! At this point, we're pretty much immersed within the canon of the movie, but you'll still see my own spin on things.
> 
> I did not expect this chapter to take so long! Life has been Wild (I met Thomas in the merch line at BMC???) and, let's be real, I've never had a consistant uploading schedule. Regardless, I certainly hope you find it worth the wait!
> 
> And, to everyone who has read, given kudos, bookmarked, and especially my lovely commenters, thank you so, so much!
> 
> Roast me if you see a typo, cowards!


	4. In Which the Audience Chugs Their Loving Logan Juice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TWs for:  
> blood  
> minor character death  
> injury  
> death threats  
> misgendering of a closeted trans character  
> dysphoria

A village by the name of Pons nestled in the mountains of Central Mexico.  It was tremendously small, and, if airplanes were around at this point (they weren’t), it would quite literally be the place you could blink and miss.

There was no work in Pons; dogs overran the streets; food was a scarce pleasure.  Here is where our Logan grew up. He was always just a tad hungry, had no siblings, and was missing a parent.

He was fantastically happy.

You see, Logan’s mother was a daughter of the Aztecs, a master swordsmith, a scholar of the highest degree, and his father was a son of a bitch.  He had ran off shortly after Logan’s mother, Estella, revealed she was pregnant, and neither had seen him since. (At the time of our story, he was on the streets of Occipital, pedaling miracle elixirs guaranteed to cure what ails you.  The fact that he now had scarce few teeth and even fewer hairs seemed to undermine his point.)

Logan truly couldn’t care less.  His mother was flighty and impulsive and absent-minded.  He loved her. Totally. The jury was still out on why, but the resounding consensus is because she loved him back.  Love is many things, but it’s hardly ever logical.

Logan, as a child, hadn’t been all that logical either. 

He loved nothing more than magic.  He could spend hours with his mother in her work shop, watching metal pour white-hot into molds and casts she spent days, weeks laboring over.  While her hands were busy at work, she told him stories of the sword’s future.

“This one, mija,” - (This was before Logan had gotten around to figuring out just why he was uncomfortable being called her daughter) - “is going to go into the hands of a great Mexican knight.  He’ll use it to win tournaments, and, one day, the hand of his true love.”

“But how can you know?”  He asked once, when he was a child of no more than six and the realities of the world started to dim the edges of his starry vision.  “How can you know what those swords are going to do?”

She just smiled and tweaked his nose.  “Magic, mijita.”

And, in his younger and more vulnerable years, he believed in her.

Logan believed in magic.

  


“Order up!”  Estella called with a wry smile, bustling into the living room in a whirring of skirts.  (This was after cheesy diners but before mom jokes had been truly mastered.)

Thomas jumped up from the couch, grinning.  “Are you going to let me see?”

“Hmm,” Estella hummed thoughtfully, hugging the long, covered bundle to her chest.  “I don't know. Honey, what do you think?”

Logan, aged eight, beamed and nodded enthusiastically.

“Well, if you say so, mi amor.”  Grinning, she laid the bundle down on the table and gently pulled off the sheets.

The very air in the room stood still in reverence.  The blade was slim, long, elegant. Estella picked it up, balancing the hilt with the long, sharp blade.  She touched it to the pad of her thumb, lightly, and a bead of red welled up.

Logan’s eyes widened.  “Doesn’t that hurt?”

“No,” Estella sighed, dreamy.  “It’s sharpened to a hair’s breadth.  You won’t realize you’ve been wounded until you bleed out.”

Thomas cleared his throat.

Estella startled, snapped out of it.  “Although you’ll do well not to hurt yourself, mi hijita.”  She laughed, as if to say ‘wouldn’t it be funny if the thing I just said was funny?’

She wrapped it, binding the bundle in twine and handing it over to Thomas.

“We'll get a good profit on this one,” she said with a satisfied smile.

“Estella,” Thomas sighed with a wry smile.  “You know how I feel about taking credit for your work.  I'm a trainer, not a maker like you.”

“And you know as well as I do people are going to take someone like you more seriously,” she responded with a grimace.  (This was during prejudice, but, if we fight very hard, someday we’ll find ourselves after prejudice.) “Besides” - it turned into a soft smile - “my girl needs an excuse to see her honorary Tio every once in a while.”

Thomas relented, pulling her into a hug.  “You’re ridiculous.”

“I thought I told you to stop talking to yourself,” Estella fired back.  “You staying for dinner?”

“Like I would ever willingly cook for myself.”  (This was before Hello Fresh, which, if certain videos are to be believed, is the only way Thomas can cook for himself.)

He followed her into the kitchen, sniffing hopefully.  “Have you decided to come back with me to the city yet?  We could be partners. My name first on the sign, probably, but equal partners.”

“No.”  She stirred the menudo.

“Alright.  Your name first on the sign.  You’re the master, you deserve to come first.”

She poured his portion.  “You can always skip dinner.”

“Why won't you?”  Thomas whined, pouting at the table.

“Because, my friend, you are famous and rich, and you should be.  Your weapons are beautiful. Useless, certainly, but beautiful.”

Thomas pulled a face at Logan, who giggled.  “You’re too kind, Estella.”

“But,” Estella continued, “you make swords for any fool who happens along.  Gold-encrusted ceremonial trinkets. I am poor, and no one knows me in all the world except for you and my girl, but I do not have to suffer fools.  I make _weapons_ for fighters.”

“You’re an artist,” Thomas sighed, setting the table.

Estella snorted as she laid down three bowls.  “Not even close.  Someday, maybe.  But not yet.”

Then Thomas turned to Logan, and asked him how he had liked the books from the city, and Logan lit up, rambling about math and science and astronomy, and the topic of swords was forgotten until the next time Thomas’s carriage rolled up the rickety path to their home.

(Something dark, something sad always crossed over Estella’s face in times like this, when she heard Logan talking of things people in their world never knew, never cared to understand.  He never noticed.)

  


Logan was ten when the itching under his skin broke free, like his body was an ill-fitting suit.

“Sweet dreams, baby girl.”  Estella leaned down and kissed her son’s forehead.  “I’ll see you in the morning.”

“No,” Logan said before he could stop himself.

Estella blinked down at him, the edge of her mouth curling with confused amusement.  “I won’t see you in the morning, then?”

“No, I’m not…”  Logan trailed off, sitting up in his bed.  His sheets rustled as he twisted his fists in them, swallowing hard.  “I’m not a girl, Mama. I look like one, and everyone says I’m one, but I don’t… I don’t feel like one.”

(This was after trans people, but trans people have existed as far back as soup and most bacteria, despite what straight cis male historians and passive-aggressive southern mothers will have you believe.)

“Oh,” Estrella said, softly, then once more.  “Oh.” Slowly, she sat down on the edge of his bed, smoothing out her skirts.  “How long have you felt like this?”

Logan couldn’t bear to look up at her, instead watching her hands fold and unfold the pleats of her skirt rhythmically.  “Always.”

She melted.  “Oh, baby,” she said, her voice tripping and breaking over the words.  She gathered him to her chest, and he broke down, sobbing into her pressed shirt.

“I’m sorry,” he cried, “I tried so hard to be a girl, but I can’t, Mama.  I’m not a girl, and I just can’t do it anymore.”

“Shh.”  She rocked him against her chest, and he could feel her trembling.  “Shh, it’s okay, honey. I’m proud of you for telling me.” She swallowed, stroking the long hair he had always hated.  “You’re a boy then?”

“Yes,” he murmured, almost afraid to say it aloud.  “I’m a boy.”

She took a deep breath and nodded, gently pushing him back.  “Then dry those eyes, mi hijito.” She wiped his face gently with her sleeve, regardless of snot and tears.  “And get some sleep. I have a feeling we’ve got a big day tomorrow.”

He chewed his bottom lip nervously, looking up at her lined, gentle face.  “You’re not mad at me?”

She gave him a smile, and he felt his fears being driven away by its light.  “The minute I held you, I knew you were perfect, baby boy.” She kissed his forehead.  “I could never be mad at you for being yourself, Logan.”

His eyes widened.  “Logan?”

She shrugged, almost sheepishly.  “I always wanted a Logan. Did you have something else picked out?”

“No.”  He shook his head, then repeated the name, wondrously.  “Logan.” It glided along the edge of his tongue, cool and comfortable to his ears.  “Logan,” he said again, mist fogging the edge of his eyes. “I like it a lot.”

“Then get some sleep, Logan.”  She stood, smoothing her skirts.  “Tomorrow, we’ll see what we can do.”

 

They cut his hair, sold his dresses, and told everyone his name was Logan.

For a while, Logan was the happiest he had ever been.

That, of course, was when the snake-faced man showed up.

  


The main thing Logan remembered about that day was the heat.  It was the summer he had turned eleven, and the air itself seemed to be shimmering, crackling with a hellish fire.  Logan had been draped over the arm of the couch, languidly fanning himself when a knock came from the door.

“Mama!”  He called down the hall, where the clang of metal on metal rang out.  “Mama!”

(This was after parents were deaf when you were calling them, yet had Vulcan hearing when you muttered a curse word after stubbing your toe.)

When no response came, he dragged himself into her workshop.  Dark strands of hair had escaped her ponytail and were stuck with sweat to her forehead and shoulders as she labored over the burning forge.

“Mama!”  He shouted.

Her eyes flicked up.

“Someone's at the door.”

She went back to hammering.  “You know how to answer a door, mi hijo.”

The ground was practically sizzling, but the man on the other side of the door didn't seem to be bothered by the heat.  A hat was slung low over his face, but mismatched eyes gleamed out from under the brim. His clothes were fine, obviously meant for nobility.

“Salutations,” Logan said, acutely wishing he was a bit more properly dressed.  Maybe a necktie? Surely no one could look at someone in a necktie with such a disdainful glower.  “May I be of assistance?”

“I'm told this is where you come to get a sword,” the man said.  “Run along and get me your mother, little boy.”

Logan drew himself up importantly.  “She's quite preoccupied.”

A gold coin landed at Logan's feet.  The man smiled thinly. “I'm sure she'll find some time.”

With wide eyes, Logan scooped up the shining token and ran to the workshop.

 

“I’m afraid it’s Thomas you’re looking for.”  Estella, at the door, smiled thinly. Logan winced from the vice-grip of her almost-trembling hand on his shoulder.  “A poor woman and her son have nothing to offer you, I’m sure.”

“I desire the greatest sword since Excalibur,” the snake said.

“And I pray your wishes are granted.”  Estella reached for the door handle. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s nearly noon, and I must make my son lunch-”

A clothed fist slammed into the door, forcing it open.  “I didn’t give you my permission to move,” the nobleman said.  His expression didn’t change, as open and pleasant as it had been earlier.  His gloved hand flexed. “I have plans, things I must accomplish. Those who stand in my way usually do not find pleasant ends.  Now, what was it you were saying of lunch?”

“That we just ate and have nothing more to do.  That we wouldn’t dream of budging.”

“I’ve heard that a genius lives here.  The greatest smith in the world.”

“Thomas,” Estella said again, “he visits sometimes.  That must be where your mistake lies.”

The nobleman paused, tilted his head.  “Well, that is a shame. Only a master could hope to accomplish the challenge of helping me.”  He tugged off a glove.

Estrella stifled a gasp.

His hand was just as misshapen as his face.  It was badly scarred, with stiff, ungainly fingers and fingernails so long they could almost be taken for talons.

“I was in an accident,” he said, voice flat.  “If it weren't for Re- if it weren't for my boss, things could have been worse.  Still, I need a way to fight.”

Estrella was practically glowing, eyes bright with excitement.  “May I?” She didn't bother waiting for a response before she grabbed his hand and inspected it closely, measuring and muttering to himself.  “You'll need a bigger hilt than typical,” she mused, “and a knot for counterbalance because of your fingers… Mi hijito, consígueme ese mi libreta.”

He scampered off, and when he returned, notepad in hand, the snake was smiling thinly.

“A year then,” he said, “and I'll return with five bags of gold.”

Logan made a small noise of amazement.

Estella paused, then squared her jaw.  “Ten.”

The nobleman arched an eyebrow.  “You dare presume your wares are worth so much?”

Her eyes hardened.  “You get what you pay for.  If I am to build you a sword to shame Excalibur, you should bless me for letting you off so easily.”

The snake tilted his head.  “Very well then. I'll see you in a year.”

Estella nodded.  “I'll have it ready by then, señior… oh, I'm so sorry.  I didn't catch your name.”

He smiled thinly.  “It doesn't matter.”  He touched the brim of his hat and was gone.

 

It was the worst year of Logan’s life.

Estella slept only when she dropped from exhaustion.  She ate only when Logan shoved bits of meat and bread at her.  She studied, groaned, raged. She never should have taken the job; it was impossible.  The next day, she was soaring, flying. There wasn’t a star in heaven that she couldn’t reach.

Her hands danced as her mind spun tale after tale for Logan, prophesying the sword’s future.  Her hair grew greasy, her spine stooped. Her skin caught the blaze of her forge and glowed with an unnatural fire, even when she was far from her workshop.

“I’ve never seen you like this, Mama,” he confessed, standing in the doorway to her workshop.  The moonlight glowed a solitary spotlight, tugging at her hair and scribbling calculation after calculation out.  The balance was wrong, so the edge was too dull. The edge was sharpened, but that weakened the metal. The metal was strengthened but now the point was too fat.  The point was slimmed and the balance was wrong again.

She was silent for a long moment, and, for a moment, he thought she hadn’t heard him.  But she always did. Even in this state, she listened.

“Then you’ve never seen me challenged, my love.  Happy.”

He swallowed hard and gripped the edge of his nightshirt.  “I don’t believe this is what happiness looks like.”

“Go to bed, mi hijito.  I’m working.” The edge of her hand was slathered in black with smeared ink.  The tips of her hair were singed.

“Mama, I don’t think-”

“Logan.”  She stopped and looked at him, eyes glowing with unnatural embers.  “Do you know why I’m doing this?”

Logan started.  “Well, you want the challenge.  The glory. To create the finest sword since Excalibur.”

She inclined her head, a wry smile flickering at the corner of her mouth.  “Well, yes. But there’s something else. If I simply wanted the glory, why did I negotiate for ten bags of gold?  Why would I care about the money?”

Logan found he had no answer.

Estella rose, crossing the room and cupping his face in her hands.  “You’re smarter than anyone around here, Logan. Never doubt that. You deserve…”  Her voice broke and she shook her head. “There’s places you can learn. Places that can teach you the names of the stars and how wide the world is and how to bring a man back from the edge of death.  But they cost.”

She pressed a kiss to his forehead.  “Let me do this, Logan. For both of us.”

Logan squared his jaw and pulled himself up.  “Then let me help.”

For the first time in months, a true smile lit the corners of her lips.  She showed him how to feed the fire.

 

A week before the year was over, Logan woke up in the dead of night.  Nothing had awoken him.

That’s what was wrong.  Nothing.

There was no sound of hammer on steel, no roaring of the forge, no muttered curses as another design failed.  Everything was dead silent.

(As a matter of fact, in the history of the world, there had only been five instances of silences as deep as the one that currently blanketed the Montoya household.  Two were perfectly timed for someone to say something embarrassing, just as conversation in the rest of the room dropped, two were the result of looking at something perplexing and going ‘huh’ internally, and one was recorded ten years prior, at the first date between one Mr. Maan Narcisa and one Mx. Alexander Úna.)

Logan padded into his mother’s workshop.  Estella was sitting there, her scarred, calloused hands folded in her lap and her squinting, brown eyes gazing forward.  He didn’t know when she noticed him, but she spoke up. “It’s done.”

Even in the hut’s darkness, the sword glistened.

“Finally,” Estella whispered, water shining in her eyes.  “Mi hijito, after a lifetime. Logan. Logan, I am an artist.”

  


The nobleman did not agree.

He came to their door, on the exact day they agreed upon.

Estella held out her hands.

It was the most perfect sword that had ever existed.  (As a matter of fact, it is still the world's greatest sword and will, if necessary, cut a bitch.)

A bag of gold unceremoniously landed at her feet.  She picked it up.

“What is this?”

“Your payment.”

Her eyes flashed.  “This is not what we agreed upon.”

“You said I'd pay for what I got.”  The scarred man sneered at the flawless masterpiece.  Another sword hung heavy at his belt.

“You’re disappointed?”  She could barely get the words out.

Logan stood in the corner of their hut, watching, holding his breath.

“I’m not saying it’s trash, you understand,” he went on, “but it’s certainly not worth ten bags of gold.  One should be more than enough.”

“Wrong!”  Estella cried.  She hurled the bag back at him and clutched the sword.  “The gold is yours. All of it.”

“I didn’t say I wouldn’t take the sword,” the nobleman reassured her, voice purring and hissing, “just that I would pay what it was worth.”

“The sword belongs to my son,” she snapped.  “I give it to him now. Goodbye.”

“I’ll take it,” the man hissed, “and give you some gold.  You should bless me for letting you off so easily.” His gloved hand reached for the hilt, but Estella already had it in her hands, drawing herself into a defensive stance.

He looked at her.  Sighed.

Logan didn't even see him draw his sword.

  


He didn't scream when she collapsed.  He didn't do anything. It was all over too quickly.

The scarred man snatched up the sword and sauntered down the path.

Logan jolted to life.  Stepping carefully over the body, quietly losing heat on the stone ground, he raced after the man, snatching the sword from his unsuspecting hand.

The nobleman looked at him coolly.  “What do you think you're doing, brat?”

“You killed her,” Logan thought he said.  His lips were numb. Everything felt numb.

“I sincerely apologize you had to see that,” the scarred man drawled.  “Now give the sword back.”

Logan clutched it until his knuckles turned white. “No.”

He snorted.  “Then I'll pluck it off your dead body in a week when you starve to death.”  He slithered down the mountain path.

“You killed her!”  Logan screamed. “Fight me!”

“I'm not going to fight a babe who can’t even lift his sword,” he called over his shoulder.

“Face me you misshapen, scarred bastard!”  Logan shouted.

The man paused.  Turned.

“You should learn how to address your betters.  It will serve you well someday.”

Logan shook, the tip of his mother's perfect sword bobbing in the air as he held it before him, clutched in both hands.  “You are not my better, murderer.”

His strange,  mismatched eyes gleamed as he stalked up to Logan.  “You would fight me?”

Fear welled up in Logan's throat, but he didn't waver.  “Yes.”

In one silver flash, the sword clattered from Logan's hand.  In the next second, it was in the killer’s.

“I'm a merciful man, you know,” he said, conversationally.  “But I think it will serve you well to have just a tiny reminder of this moment.”

Logan ducked just in time to avoid the sword’s arch.  It crashed into the stone path with a shower of sparks.  The scarred man hissed. He kicked out, and Logan was flat on the ground, looking into his face.

Logan committed every inch to memory. 

“Do you like my scars?”  The nobleman asked, pleasantly, after he noticed Logan's scrutiny.  He flicked the blade once, twice, then it was done.

Hot streams of pain crossed Logan's cheeks.  He lay in the road, shaking.

The scarred man examined the blade, frowning at the single notch.  “Look what you made me do.” He dropped a year and a life's worth unceremoniously to the dusty ground, and only then did Logan feel the blood running down his face.

The nobleman turned.  Walked away.

Logan lay on the ground until the sky turned red.

 

He woke up to Thomas's face hovering above him.  There was a soft pillow beneath Logan's head, bandages on his cheeks.

“I took you home with me,” Thomas explained softly.  “As soon as I heard what happened, I came running. Logan, I” - His voice cracked - “I'm so sorry.”

He was in Thomas’ mansion.  In the city. He'd never been farther from home.  

Something came unmoored in Logan's chest.

“Don't be,” he said flatly, pushing himself up despite Thomas's protests.  “Everyone dies. It's unavoidable.”

Thomas started.  “Oh, um… I guess that's a… logical way to look at it, Logan.”  He switched tactics, nuding a stack of books towards him.  

“I got you a few books.  Some fairy tales. I know you love the ones with magic.”

Logan gazed at them blankly.  

“Don't be illogical, Thomas.  Those are frivolous.” Logan laid back down.  “I need a minimum of eight hours of rest for maximum efficiency tomorrow.”

At the clear dismissal, Thomas reluctantly crossed to the door.  “I know this is hard, but I'm going to be here for you, Lo. Okay?”

He didn't get a response.

 

There was a note on Logan's pillow the next morning.  _I must learn._

Thomas tore apart the city, the area, the country looking for him.  He never could. 

  


Ten years later, a knock came on Thomas's door.

On the other side, a man stood - tall, wiry, with huge, violent scars running the length of his cheeks.

“Logan,” Thomas gasped, drawing him into a hug.

“Thomas,” Logan responded, peering over his shoulder, “is that a llama?”

Timothy the llama took a bite out of the wallpaper.

“Never leave again,” Thomas laughed, pulling back and clasping his shoulders.  “I make dumb decisions when I'm lonely.”

Logan shook his head, regret pinching the corners of his mouth.  “I can't stay. I just came to ask you one question.” He cleared his throat self-importantly.  “As you know, I have spent the last ten years learning.”

“Yes, you made that very clear in the _four-word note_ you left as a _twelve-year old_ that was supposed to reassure me when you disappeared.”

“Now,” Logan continued loudly, having the slightest bit of grace to look abashed, “I've come to ask if I'm ready.”

“Ready for what?”  Thomas threw his arms up.  “Logan, what have you been learning?”

Logan touched his hand to the sword hanging at his side, perfect and gleaming, except for the small notch on its blade.  “The sword.”

Thomas blinked at him slowly.  “You're kidding.”

“No, I'm quite serious.”  Logan adjusted his necktie.  “Serious people wear neckties.”

“I'm calling bullsh*t.”

“How did you just censor yourself?”

“You can not have spent _ten years_ doing nothing but learning how to sword fight.”

“Well, no,” Logan conceded, following Thomas into the living room, “not _just_ learning how to fence. I used my time efficiently in other ways.”

Thomas settled onto the couch across from him.  “Tell me.”

“Ten years is three-thousand, six hundrid and fifty days.”  (This was before Leap years.) “Which, in turn, is eighty-six thousand, six-hundred hours.  Well, I made it a point to sleep for at least four hours a night, which eliminated fourteen thousand, six hundred hours.”

“Okay, you slept. I'm with you.”  Thomas nodded.

Logan pulled out a sheet of paper, tacked it up to the wall, and began to construct a pie chart.  (This was before pies, so at the time, it was just called a nonexistent pastry chart.)  “Now, even with that time accounted for, I had seventy two thousand hours.”

“So what else did you do?”  Thomas leaned forward.

“I squeezed rocks.”  Logan drew in another healthy non-slice in the nonexistent pastry chart.

Thomas rubbed one of his ears.  “I'm sorry, I think my hearing is going out.  It almost sounded like you said you squeezed rocks.”

“To strengthen my wrists and control the sword,” Logan explained.  “So, I spent a total of two hours a day, or seven thousand, three hundrid hours total squeezing apple-sized rocks.  Additionally, I spent two hours per day dodging, leaping, and square dancing to ensure proper footwork while fighting.”

“Square dancing?”  Thomas said faintly.

“Yeehaw,” Logan deadpanned.  “Now, this left me with fifty-seven thousand, four hundred hours per day. Two of those were dedicated to sprinting, to ensure speed.”

“And those remaining fifty thousand hours?”  Thomas asked. “You spent those leaning to fence?”

Logan frowned.  “It was forty-eight thousand, eight hundrid hours.”  He tapped on the chart.

“I'm gay, not good at math.”  Thomas rolled his eyes.

“Granted.”

Thomas shook his head.  “Where did you learn?”

“Anywhere I could find a master,” Logan pocketed his pointer and sat next to Thomas.  “New York, Brazil, Chille.”

“But why didn't you stay?”  Thomas demanded. “You know I could have taught you here!”

Only then did Logan soften, placing his hand over Thomas's.  “Because you loved me, Thomas. You've had said, ‘great form, Logan! That's enough for today.  Let's go have a snack’.”

“That… definitely sounds like something I would have done,” Thomas admitted, a wry quirk to his mouth.  It still did. “But why was that so important? Why did you throw away your childhood?”

Logan pulled away, an icy sheen settling over his features.  “I'm not going to fail her again.”

Thomas's expression softened.  “Estella,” he said. The name was fresh on his tongue, as if he hadn’t dared to speak it in so long.

Logan squared his jaw.  

“I’ve spent all these years preparing to find the snake-man and kill him in a duel.  However, he is a master. Not only did he say as much, but I saw the way his sword flew.  I can’t-” his voice cracked, and he drew back, staring at his hands for a long time and breathing.  He smoothed his expression away until he was blank and unfeeling - dispassionate and cold as steel.  

“I will not lose that duel when I find him, so now I have come to you.  You know swords and swordsmen better than perhaps anyone.” He looked up at Thomas, unnatural embers glowing in his eyes.  “If you say I am ready, then I am. If not, then I will spend another ten years and another ten after that, if necessary.”

Thomas nodded and led him to the courtyard.

It was late morning, but the air itself sizzled.  Any flowers that dared poke their petaled faces out of the ground wilted instantly.  Logan didn’t flinch. He tightened his tie, pulled out his sword, and got into position.

“The snake taunts you,” Thomas, hiding in the shade of his manor, called.  “Duel him.”

Logan began to leap around the courtyard, the great blade flashing.

“He surprises you with the Agrippa-defense!”

He wasn’t surprised for long.  Logan shifted position, speeding up until his sword became a streak of steel lightning.

“Bonetti’s attack!”

Again, his feet shifted; his sinewy body transformed.

Thomas almost didn’t recognize him.

Logan wasn’t himself when he fought.  Something deep - a raw, pulsating sort of rage - settled under his skin, barring his teeth and pushing electricity through his veins.  (This was before electricity, but Logan was actually the one to invent the term if just to fabricate an explanation for his battle-rage.)

If he was younger, he would have called it magic.

Logan knew better now.

At three in the afternoon, Thomas cried: “Stop!”  He slumped over, wiping sweat from his brow. “I’m exhausted.”

Logan stood, panting slightly, sword still at the ready.  “Well? Your verdict?”

“Your mother always made the world’s finest weapons,” Thomas said, softly, “but I think, out of all of them, you’re her greatest.”

  


Logically speaking, the man in black should not have been able to climb the cliff.  There were no footholds, and the rocks were sharp and slippery. Yet, still, he climbed.

Logan laid on his stomach, peering over the edge of the cliff, and squinted his eyes.  He was a good learner, although not a particularly fast one, so it took him a moment to realize what the man in black was doing.

He balled his fists - one at a time - and rammed them into the cliff’s face.  Then, using his fist as an anchor, dragged himself upward one agonizing inch at a time.  Whenever he could find support for his feet, he used it, but his fists driving into the sheer rock enabled the majority of his climb.

Logan made a soft noise of amazement, mind whirring as he calculated the rock’s placement on the Moss scale, the probable force at which the man’s fist flew as related to its surface area…

Strong.

The man was incredibly strong.

It was almost as though something, some ineffable higher force was pulling him upwards.

(“On love’s light wings,” Roman would have muttered, had he been there and had he known all he soon would.”)

The man was close enough now for Logan to see the mask, obscuring everything but his mouth.  A black bandana was tied over his hair. Logan squinted, but he didn’t appear to have scales or scars of any sort.

Another outlaw, perhaps?

Logan sighed and stood, brushing himself off and unsheathing his sword.  He really did seem like quite the extraordinary man.

It was a shame Logan was going to kill him.

He didn’t necessarily want to, but orders were orders and rules ruled the Kingdom.  Besides, if he didn’t, Peter would inevitably make Patton do it, and that was… unacceptable.

Logan didn’t bother to waste sympathy on the man in black.  (This was before Hallmark cards, but even if they had been around and even if there was one that said ‘so sorry for killing you in a duel’, Logan wouldn’t have bought it.)

Someday, someone would kill Logan, and the world would not stop to mourn.

The man in black was perhaps fifty feet below the cliff face.  All that was left to do was wait.

 

One problem.

Logan really, _really_ hated waiting.  Once he had paced the edge of the cliff a few times, he had run himself through some sword fighting drills, then paced some more, gazed dramatically into the sunrise and wondered where Patton was, and now he was brooding.  Logan was a champion brooder, really. He had the dramatic scars for it. He had been brooding for a good ten minutes and was pacing himself so he could brood until the man in black got to the top and still have enough in him for a final burst of sullen silence once he and his adversary met.

Which, really, would be any minute now.

Any…. minute… now…

Logan gave up on his brooding and stalked over to the cliff’s edge.  The man in black was still thirty feet down. He made his way up, agonizingly slowly, and Logan took the time to examine the sword strapped to the man’s side.

A small thrill of excitement hit him.

“Salutations,” he called.

The man in black flicked his eyes up, grunted, and jammed his fist into the cliff.

“Slow going?”  Logan continued.

“I hate to be rude,” the man in black snarked, “but this is not as easy as it looks so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t distract me, specs.”

“Apologies.”  Logan retreated from the cliff face and made another solid attempt at brooding.

“I do not suppose you could make better progress?”  He called down again, not three minutes later.

“If you’re in such a hurry, you could lower a rope or make yourself useful somehow,” the man drawled.

“Factually true.”  Logan included his head.  “But I’m under the impression you would refuse my offer, as I am waiting to kill you.”

“That does put a damper on our relationship,” the man concurred.  “But, I’m afraid you’ll just have to wait.”

Twenty five feet down.

“I hate waiting,” Logan muttered, turning away before a sudden thought hit him.  “I could give you my word as a swordsman!”

“No good,” the man grunted, dragging himself up another foot.  “I’ve known too many swordsmen.”

“I must confess I’m going quite” - Logan pulled a stack of flashcards (his own invention, although he didn’t think they’d catch on) out of his pocket and flipped through a few - “‘cray-cray’ up here.”

“Anytime you’d like to switch places, I’m more than happy to do so.”

With twenty feet left, the man in black sagged against the rock, breathing heavily.

“Come now,” Logan cajoled (this was after cajoling). “You have merely twenty feet left.  Surely you can continue. I am more than willing to offer the reassurance that you’ll reach the top alive, and I shall provide a rope to ease the rest of your ascent.”

“Why on Earth do you want to help me so much?”  The man in black snapped, craning his neck to hit Logan with a full-force glare.  (In terms of intensity, it was a solid ten out of ten, but the overall effect was somewhat dampened by the fact he was hanging off of the side of the cliff like a particularly damp, emo barnicle.)

“Well, you appear to be an excellent swordsman.”  Logan inclined his head. “The sword you’re carrying has significant wear, indicating frequent use.  The grip on the hilt is of a distinctly Italian,” - (this was after Italy) - “influence, yet has modifications that suggest on-the-fly improvisations.  Furthermore, the Gaelic” - (this was before France) - “weight of the sword leads me to believe-”

“Okay, okay!”  The man in black resisted the urge to throw up his hands in surrender.  Largely because that would’ve sent him plummeting to the sharp rocks and death below.  “Fine, throw me the rope.”

Logan began uncoiling the rope as the man continued, grumbling.  “Honestly, you talk too much.”

Logan stood on the edge of the cliff, rope dangling from his hand and eyebrow arched.  “I could always change my mind.”

“You are a wonderful conversationalist,” the man immediately rescinded.

“That’s what I thought,” Logan said and threw the rope.

  


The man in black reached the top shortly thereafter, with a bit of huffing and puffing on both mens’ part.

“Thank you,” the man in black sighed, hands on his knees.

Then his sword was at Logan’s throat.

“You know,” Logan said, conversationally, trying to hide the thrill of excitement rising in his stomach, “you’ve just climbed a rather significant distance.  We can wait until you are ready to commence in any sort of combat.”

The man in black smiled, sharp.  “A swordsman and a gentleman? I don’t believe I’ve ever seen such a combination, then.”  Regardless, he sheathed his sword and sunk onto a relatively flat rock, releasing the smallest sigh of relief.

“You musn’t keep very civilized company.”  Logan perched beside him, reflexively touching the soft flesh of his unscathed throat.  “Do you count yourself among those ranks?”

Something in his storm gray eyes darkened.  “I’m _far_ from a gentleman, Sir.”

“Why have you followed us?”  Logan asked, quietly.

“You have something I want.  Valuable cargo, you could say.”

“We have no intentions of selling.”

The man shrugged.  “That’s your business.”

“What’s yours then?”

“Revenge.”

Logan snorted.  “In that case, we are more alike than previously assumed.”

The man in black shot him a wry smile.  “I knew there was a tragic backstory to go with those scars.”

Logan made a noncommittal noise and stood, turning away to survey the clifftop they found themselves on.  Riddled with roots and flat, sandy plains and rocky platforms - it was perfect for a fight. The stage was spotlighted by the rising sun, cresting over the edge of the cliffs.  It’d be so wonderfully easy to force the man in black back, to watch him slip and fall down those still-same cliffs he had so masterfully climbed earlier.

Logan could already feel himself slipping away, that buzz settling over his skin.  His hand twitched, longing for a sword as his blood began to sing with electricity.  He could just barely eek out his next sentence.

“Nothing that would interest you, I'm sure.”

“Well then.”  The man in black stood, bowed.  “May I have this dance?” He drew his sword, holding it in his right hand.  

That sight thrilled Logan.  His weakness against the stranger’s strength.  He knew who would prevail, regardless.

“You may.”  Logan almost smiled as he drew his sword in return, twirling it in his right hand.  “Although I must inform you my affections lay elsewhere.”

“How strange.”  The man almost smiled back.  “As do mine.”

The first blows came quickly, each man circling before they stepped back.  Logan lunged forward with a lightning-fast strike, but the man dodged it like it was nothing.  Another flurry of attacks, and the man in black tried the same attack on Logan.  It didn’t even come close to hitting him.

They locked eyes.  Smiled.

“You’re using Bonetti’s defence against me, are you not?”  Logan swiped at his legs, but the man had already jumped out of the way.

“I thought it natural, considering the rocky terrain,” he said conversationally, slashing at Logan’s jugular.  Logan parried easily, laughing.

“You really expect me to attack with Capo Ferro?”  He leaped up onto a rocky plateau, stabbing downwards.  “What level of an amatur do you judge me to?”

The man in black shrugged, forcing Logan further up the rock with a series of blows.  “Oh, I don’t know. I’ve always found Capo Ferro a perfectly adequate alternative to the Thibault.”

The man in black dropped from the platform, landing several feet below Logan.  He looked up with a challenging smirk.

“Unless your opponent has studied the Agrippa.”  Logan took a few running steps and flew off the edge of the rock, tumbling midair to land facing his rival.  

“Which I have," he added with a cocky shrug.

The man in black just laughed, driving forward with insurmountable strength, forcing Logan towards the edge of the cliffs.

“Your form is flawless,” Logan marveled, dodging to avoid another scar across his cheek.

“Thank you.”  The man found a gap in Logan’s defence, drawing a sharp line across his forearm.  “I’ve worked on it for quite a while.”

Logan hissed in pain, eyes shining.  “I must admit it… you’re better than I am.”  His heels were almost over the edge of the cliffs.  He hadn’t felt this alive in years.

“Then why are you smiling?”  The man in black narrowed his eyes, barrling onward.

“Because I know something you don’t know.”  (This was, by far, Logan’s favorite sentence, and it brought him no end of joy to utter.  This occasion was no expectation.)

“And what’s that?”

Logan’s foot slipped over the edge.

“I am not right-handed.”  Logan tossed his sword to his left hand and surged forward.  Immediately, the tide of the battle shifted. The man in black could hardly defend himself against a killing blow; countless scratches and scrapes began to litter his skin as Logan’s clever sword slipped through his defenses.

Logan circled the man, and now it was him slipping dangerously close to the cliff’s edge, helpless as a newborn baby being told that the problems of climate change heaped upon their generation by the past generations were now their issue.

“You know,” Logan said, grunting as he pushed the man closer to the edge.  The man threw himself to the side in what would have been an impressive escape, if not for the rock that slipped out from underneath his feet.  He fell on his right arm with a crack, hissing. “You seem a decent fellow.” Logan pressed the tip of his sword into the soft flesh of his throat.  “I hate to kill you.”

“You seem a decent fellow.”  The man in black wiped a trail of blood off of his split lip, looking up at him with stormy gray eyes.  “I hate to die.”

Logan steadied himself for the killing blow before the man in black did something strange.  He smiled.

“Why…”  Logan tilted his head, eyes narrowed.  “Why are you smiling?”

“Because I know something you don’t know.” A hint of amusement touched the man’s eyes.  

Intrigued despite himself, Logan leaned forward.  “And what’s that?”

“You see…”  The man’s gray eyes flashed.  “I’m not right handed either.”

“Wha-”

The air was punched out of Logan’s lungs as the man swept his legs out from under him.  Before Logan could even recover, the man leapt to his feet and scooped up his sword, retreating to a safe distance.  His right arm was tucked behind his back.

Eyes flashing, the man in black struck once, twice, and Logan’s sword flew out of his hands, landing in the soft dirt a plateau away.  For the first time since he was eleven, Logan was afraid of a fight.

The man in black inclined his head.

Logan scrambled towards his sword, snatching it up and holding it before him in his trembling left hand.

The man in black flung his sword; it spiraled through the air, landing just between Logan’s feet.  Something told him it wasn’t a lucky miss.  

_Ah,_   Logan realized.  _He’s a drama gay._

The man in black grabbed a low-hanging tree branch and flipped himself around it twice before somersaulting into a perfect landing and grabbing his sword with a deadpan expression.

_Definitely a drama gay,_ Logan mentality confirmed.

“Who are you?”  Logan demanded.

“An emo nightmare, to those that care.”  Something bitter touched the edge of the man’s mouth.  “No one of consequence, really.”

“I’m serious,” Logan snapped, gesturing to his necktie.  “I must know.”

The emo nightmare smirked.  “Get used to disappointment.”

Logan sighed.  “Very well.”

Within a second, they were dancing across the sandy, rocky ground.  The frenzy of their feet kicked up clouds of dust. Their blades were both practically invisible for their speed.  

“If I had friends anymore,” the nightmare mused, twisting mid-air to block Logan’s thrust, “you’d be a very good candidate.”

Logan laughed, a little winded.  “If we weren’t trying to kill each other, I’d agree quite readily.”

They were almost equally matched.  Almost. The man in black was just _slightly_ faster than Logan, just _slightly_ stronger, just _slightly_ more desperate.

But just slightly more was enough.  Cuts and scrapes littered Logan's skin until his shirt was riddled with tears and his limbs ached with exhaustion.  The man in black struck out one final time.

Logan's sword dropped from his hand.  He collapsed to his knees.

“Kill me quickly,” Logan said, clenching his hands, as if that could stop their shaking.  “If you have any mercy in your soul, kill me quickly. And…” He faltered, swallowing hard and blinking back tears.  “And tell Patton…”

If Logan believed in happy endings, if he believed in good, if he believed in wishes, if he believed in magic, he could have reached out and taken Patton’s hand before the other three left.  Logan could have kissed him; maybe Patton would have lit up like a struck match, just like he did when he cracked a pun.

But wishes were just dreams, and dreams were just pretend.  In the end of every story, science and reason triumphed. Magic wasn't real.

So Logan hadn’t done it.

So he never would.

“Tell Patton I-”

“I’m not going to kill you, Specs,” the emo rolled his eyes.  “I'd sooner destroy MySpace than an artist such as yourself.”

Logan barely had time to breathe out, relieved, before the man continued.

“But, since I can’t have you following me either…”

The hilt of his sword cracked across the back of Logan’s head.

He crumpled to the ground, and the man in black paused just long enough to make sure he was still breathing.

“Please understand I hold you in the highest respect,” he drawled before chasing after the footprints, chasing after Roman.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Extra long waits mean extra long updates. Who'd've thought.
> 
> Anyway, so excited to finally get this chapter out to all of you! I've been terribly busy with other projects lately ([Monster](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19097539) is great, if you haven't read it), but I'm still so happy to be updating The Princey Bride again. 
> 
> Next chapter, we'll be diving into Patton's Tragic Backstory and his fight with the ~mysterious~ man in black. It's going to be so much fun
> 
> Thank you so much for all the sweet comments I've been getting lately. I treasure each and every one, and I can't thank all of you enough for all the kudos and bookmarks as well!
> 
> that being said, ROAST ME IF YOU SEE A TYPO, COWARDS

**Author's Note:**

> Apparently my solution for writers block on another fic is to create a whole new fic. I'm brilliant like that.
> 
> This will take inspiration from both the book and the movie, but a lot of it is my own spin on things, so don't come after me with pitchforks when I change things up a bit. The Princess Bride is my favorite movie of all time, and I hope I can do it justice.
> 
> Since I already reference The Princess Bride in everything I write, I figured I might as well write a whole Princess Bride AU.
> 
> Roast me if you see a typo, cowards


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